Strand district before summoning up courage to enter and take a room. It
seemed to him the proprietors of these places would refuse and ridicule
him—that they would tax him with his youth, and query if he had ever
used a razor. Yet men great and small, of important or insignificant
appearance, passed in and out of the swinging doors with the smallest
concern imaginable. They dropped their baggage in the hall, and
conversed with the clerks about rooms as he might have helped himself to
salt at the table.
In all his life Wynne had never stopped at an hotel, and had no
experience from which to adjust his actions. He realized, however, that
to delay the ordeal indefinitely would serve no useful purpose. An hotel
attracted his attention on the opposite side of the road, and squaring
his shoulders he boldly approached it. His shame was boundless when he
walked deliberately past the open doors and down once more to the
Strand.
“That’s the most cowardly thing I have ever done,” he rated himself.
In Villers Street he espied an eating-house with an uncooked sirloin,
embellished with parsley and tomatoes, standing on a silver salver in
the window. He halted and read the various legends pasted to the inner
surface of the plate glass. “A good dinner for 1s. 6d.” “Steaks and
onions.” “Stewed tripe.” “Bed and breakfast, 3s.” Without waiting for
his courage to ebb he walked inside. A dirty Swiss waiter pulled a chair
from a small table and flicked the seat invitingly with a napkin.
“I want—that is, would you be good enough to let me a room. I was
recommended to come here—at least I think—”
“A room—sartainly—one minute,” he called a name through an open door,
and a stout lady entered. “A room for zis gentleman. You will go wiz
her.”
As he mounted the stairs Wynne reflected that there was nothing in it
after all. It was the simplest matter. He wished he had omitted the
legend about having been recommended to the place; clearly there was no
occasion for anything beyond a simple expression of one’s needs. He had
not thought to learn anything from a Swiss waiter in a Villers Street
hotel, yet a new department of learning had been opened for him from
which he might profit in the future.
The room to which he was shown was very ordinary, and made little
impression upon him. He threw his bag to the bed and seated himself
easily beside it.
The landlady lingered by the door, and he ventured a remark to her:
“I suppose you let quite a number of rooms?”
“It would be,” she answered, “a bad thing for us if we didn’t.”
As there appeared to be nothing further to contribute to that line of
inquiry, he nodded and remained silent.
“You’ll want a bit of dinner, I suppose.”
“Oh, yes, thank you—thanks.”
“If you was to order it now it would be ready when you come down.”
“All right,” he said. Then, as she still lingered: “I think I’ll wash my
hands if you don’t mind.”
“What’ll you have to eat?”
Of course! It was so obvious—he ought to have thought of that. What
could he have? It would betray inexperience to ask what there was—a man
of the world would know in an instant what his appetite desired. Wynne
had often pictured himself ordering a dinner, but now the time had come
he felt strangely unable to do so. His memory served him with a picture
of the uncooked sirloin and the tomatoes, but it was unlikely they would
oven this on his behalf.
The need to answer being imperative, he ordered “A chop, please, and
some potatoes.” After the departure of the landlady he cursed his woeful
lack of imagination. He had dreamed to feast, as the old emperors, upon
ortolans and the brains of peacocks, and instead he had ordered the very
dish which, in the ordinary rotation of the home-menu, would have
appeared on his father’s table that night.
Before going downstairs Wynne decided very firmly what he would say when
asked as to his choice of drink. He would order shandy-gaff, and he
would name it familiarly as “shandy.”
This resolve completed, he opened his suit case and set out his
belongings in careless disorder. Beyond doubt it was very fine to be a
free-lance and possess a room of one’s own in the heart of London. He
took a pace or two up and down the floor and filled his lungs with air.
The rumble of traffic and the long-sustained London note, made up of
thousands of fine particles of sound, drifted to his ears.
“Something like!” said Wynne. “This is something like!”
He put his head out of the window and spoke again:
“You silly old crowds, all hurrying along. You don’t know me—but one
day you shall. Yes, I shall find out all your secrets, and you will come
to me to disclose them. Oh! you silly, busy, hurrying old crowds, I’m
getting ready for you. Why don’t you look up and see me? Don’t you want
to? There’s no charge yet. Look while you have the chance, for later on
I shall tip up your chins and hold your eyes whether you want me to or
not.”
But none was disposed to glance his way. The day’s work was done, and
London emptying itself homeward. There were dinners, warm fires, and
welcomes awaiting them, why should they waste a glance upon the white
face of an anæmic boy who hung out over the sill of a three-shilling
bedroom and blathered his foolish thoughts to the night.
Wynne ordered “shandy” with an air of some importance: by sheer bad luck
the Swiss waiter’s vocabulary was deficient of this word. He asked Wynne
to repeat it, and, still failing to understand, further asked how the
beverage was concocted. This threw Wynne into a blushing difficulty,
since he himself was doubtful as to the ingredients used. Accordingly he
revoked the order and asked for some ale, and since he stated no
particular quantity he was saddled with a bottle of the largest size,
which greatly taxed his powers of consumption. He struggled bravely,
however, and the good malt fluid gave tone to his being and warmed his
imagination.
He rose from the table with the pleasant confidence that he had left
much of his awkwardness behind. He had thought to spend the evening
considering his future, but in his rosy mood he decided a theatre would
prove a more agreeable form of entertainment.
Hitherto his playgoing had been confined to a yearly visit to the local
pantomime, a performance which had made no special appeal to him. As
master of his own choice he repaired to Shakespeare’s Henry VIII., and
was vastly impressed by the splendour of it all. Here and there he found
himself at variance with the actors’ renderings of certain passages, and
during the intervals ruminated upon alternative readings. On the whole,
however, the experience was delightful.
At the conclusion he emerged from the theatre in a state of artistic
intoxication. He longed for a companion to whom he could express the
views which the play had set in motion—any one would do so long as he
might speak his thoughts aloud. With all these jostling crowds it was
absurd that any one should be denied an audience. Surely some one would
be glad to lend an ear. There must be some companionable soul in this
great city with a thirst for knowledge and enlightenment.
“The clouds that gather round the setting sun.” Wolsey had been wrong to
betray so much emotion in delivering that speech. A man like Wolsey
would see grim humour in his own downfall. It was contrary to the
character, as he saw it, to stress the emotions of such a coming to
pass. Wynne knew the speech intimately, and felt a great desire to
repeat it aloud in the way it should be repeated. The Haymarket was
hardly a place for such a recital, so he turned into Orange Street and
the narrow thoroughfares adjoining. Here in a shadow he began the lines,
but had hardly uttered a sound before a step caused him to stop. Looking
round he saw a girl walking slowly toward him. A fur swung from her
shoulders and a bag dangled in her hand. The white of her boots seemed
phosphorescent in the half-light. As she came abreast of him their eyes
met. Hers were bold and black-lashed, and the lids drooped in lazy
insolence.
“Kiddie,” she said, “coming home?”
And Wynne was startled into replying:
“Why, do you want a friend too?”
She curled her scarlet lips into a smile.
“I always want a friend,” she answered.
“I don’t,” he said; “only sometimes! Sometimes one feels one must
confide. I feel like that tonight.”
“Confide in me, then. What’s to stop you?”
“I think I will. You’re frank—unconventional; some one like you I’ve
been looking for. I couldn’t sleep tonight—couldn’t go to bed.”
The smile came again—went—and was replaced by an expression of
perplexity. It was not the conversational formula to which she was
accustomed.
“Well, don’t let’s hang about, anyway,” she said. “There’s sure to be a
cab in Waterloo Place. Come on.”
“D’you live far from here, then? It would be jollier to walk, don’t you
think?”
She had heard that phrase before, on the lips of economists, and the
business side of her nature sprang to action.
“If you’ve no money—better say so.”
“I’ve plenty of money.”
“What do you call plenty?”
“Don’t let’s talk money. People never speak of anything else.”
“I’m beginning to think you know a thing or two.”
“Perhaps I do.” The suggestion flattered him.
“So do I, and I’d like to know what I’m standing for, too. I’m too fly
to bounce, kiddie. Get me?”
“No,” he replied. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” He
hated confessing this, but it was no less than the truth.
“Of—course—not,” she drawled the syllables, and leaned against his
shoulder with fingers that travelled caressingly over his wrist and
palm.
“O God!” exclaimed Wynne. “I see.” A kind of fear possessed him and he
backed a pace.
“What’s the matter now?”
“Only—only that I’m a fool. I must be. You’re Adventure, aren’t you?
Commercial Adventure?”
“Now then! Who are you calling names?”
“I must be a fool.”
This concerned him most, and provided him with courage.
“All boys are fools—men too, for that matter. Come along if you’re
coming.”
“But I’m not,” said Wynne.
“Why not?”
“I made a mistake.”
“A mistake, eh? You’re a cheeky little devil. Who are you to speak to a
girl? I should like to ask?”
“I didn’t recognize you, that’s all. I’ve never met you before. Another
time I shall know. Good-night.”
He turned quickly and walked away.
“Silly little kid!” murmured the girl, and fell into her roving pace
once more.
“I wish I had told her how rotten I thought she was,” mused Wynne, as he
pulled off his boots before getting to bed. “I might have gone home with
her!” He tried to picture such a happening, but it brought nothing to
his imagination. There was not the slightest tremble of passion to weigh
against his satisfaction at having avoided the offered temptation.
“Fools men must be to yield to that sort. I never should. I think I got
out of it all right after the first mistake. Original sin!” He fell to
quoting Swinburne, a poet who had pleased his ear alone.
“What sterile growth of sexless root or Epicene,
What flower of kisses without fruit of love, Faustine.”
“She was very pretty—pretty figure—and her hands and feet were small.
Yes, all the temptation was there, and I didn’t yield. Glad I met her.
It’s helped me to know myself. I’m all right.”
As he drew the blanket under his chin Wynne felt unduly
self-satisfied—he forgot, perhaps, that it is easy to resist when there
is no impulse to sin.
X
At the National Gallery on the following morning Wynne fell into
conversation with an old man. The old man wore an Inverness cape and a
wide-brimmed felt hat, he had shaggy eyebrows, a wispy moustache, and
his cheeks were seamed and furrowed with wrinkles. He muttered to
himself and seemed in a fine rage. Sometimes he rattled his umbrella and
scowled at the passers-by, and sometimes he tossed his head and laughed
shortly. Scarcely a soul came nigh him that he did not scrutinize
closely and disapprovingly. Before him was Leonardo’s “Virgin of the
Rocks,” and by his mutterings and rattles he kept the space before the
picture clear of other humanity, as a sheep-dog rings his flock.
As Wynne approached he came under the influence of the old gentleman’s
inflamed stare, which, being in no wise alarmed, he returned with
interest.
“Keep your eyes for the pictures,” rapped out this peculiar individual.
“So I would,” returned Wynne, “if it were not that you disturbed them.”
“Ha! You’re like all the rest. You’d run from your own bridal altar to
see a cab-horse jump the area railings. I know the breed—I know ’em.”
“Concentration is easily dislocated,” said Wynne, choosing his words
carefully, “attention is dependent upon circumstance and atmosphere.”
“Good, enough, O most wise Telemachus,” came the answer, with a mixture
of agreement and cynicism, “the very reason for _my_ invitation. How the
devil shall a man keep his mind on this” (he nodded at the picture)
“while this herd is using the Gallery as a shelter from the rain?”
Wynne laughed. An attack on the people always gave him pleasure.
“That’s a fair statement of the case. The sun’ll be out in a minute,” he
cocked his eye to the sky-light. “Then we shall have the place to
ourselves. Mark my words.”
“They’ve no artistic appreciation,” said Wynne, feeling on safe ground.
“A very bovine race, the English.”
“Tommy rot!” said the old gentleman, unexpectedly; “don’t talk
drivelling nonsense. Best race in the world, the English, but they won’t
let ’emselves go.”
“Well, doesn’t that amount to—”
“No, it don’t. You can’t judge the speed of a racehorse while he is
munching oats in a stable.”
“No, sir; but presumably the people should come here to appreciate. They
can do their munching at home.”
“Rubbish! English folk are too shy to express appreciation. That’s the
trouble with ’em—shyness. National code! They keep away from all
matters likely to excite ’em artistically for fear of being startled
into expressing their true feelings. Englishmen’s idea of bad form,
expression! Damn fine people! Bovine? Not a bit of it!”
Seemingly, to be consistent was not a characteristic of the old
gentleman, a circumstance which rendered argument difficult. Wynne fell
back on:
“After all, it was you who attacked them first.”
“Know I did. Good reason too. A lot of clattering feet thumping past my
Leonardo! Scattering my thoughts. ’Taint right—’taint reverent. If I’d
my way I’d allow no one to enter here who hadn’t graduated to a degree
in the arts—or respect for the arts. ’Tisn’t decent for people to use
as a waiting-room a gallery holding some of the world’s greatest
achievements on canvas. It’s degrading and disgraceful. Why aren’t we
taught to respect art from infancy, hey? And pay it proper compliments,
too. We have to take our hats off in a twopenny tin chapel, and are
thought blackguards and infidels if we keep ’em on, but do we ever touch
a forelock to a masterpiece in paint, and does any one think any the
worse of us however idiotically we behave before it? No! Then I say that
we are no better than hooligans and savages, and have no right of
contact with the glorious emblems of what a man’s hand and a man’s head
can achieve.”
This speech he delivered with enthusiasm and a profusion of gesture.
Wynne was properly impressed, and hoped the old gentleman would proceed,
which he readily did.
“Good Gad a’mighty!” he ejaculated, pointing a claw-like forefinger at
Leonardo’s Virgin. “Whenever I doubt the Scriptures I look at her and
the doubt passes. Da Vinci _saw_ her. _Saw_ her, and he painted what he
saw—the flesh and the spirit. See the eyelids, they tremble—don’t
they? They are never at rest. That’s the woman essence—the mother
essence—eyes trembling over the soul of her child. And the hands! Don’t
you feel at any second they may move? One might come tomorrow and find
them any-other-where. Motion—touch—a quickening sense of protection.
Use the place as a shelter against the rain! Damnable! There’s just the
same amazing mobility in the expression of La Jaconde—at the Louvre,
but with this difference. The Virgin”—he pointed again at the
picture—“and Monna Lisa, the woman who saw the world through eyes of
understanding which curled her lips to humour. A courtesan some folks
say she was—not unlikely—inevitable almost! Takes a courtesan to
contrive a measured expression like that. Lord! if a good woman could
understand as a courtesan _must_ understand, what a superwoman she would
be! Intellect springs from knowledge of the flesh, and is sunk in it
too—more often the latter. The revelation of one sex to another is the
well-head of all learning. Passion of the soul is the reaction of bodily
passion—must be—_is_. What is it Pater says about Monna
Lisa?—‘Represents what, in a thousand years, man had come to desire.’
True too! Even a fool would admit that. There’s a fleeting look in the
eyes and the mouth that adjusts itself to every line of thought—gives
an answer to every question—a compassion for every sin—an impetus to
all betterment. Been to the Louvre? Know the picture?”
“No,” said Wynne, rather ruefully.
“Good Gad a’mighty! then you’ve plenty to learn, and the sooner you
start the better. What are you—art student or what?”
“I am going to be a writer.”
“How old?”
“Seventeen and a bit.”
“Then learn to paint first. There are no schools for writers, and
painting’ll teach you more than all the libraries in the world. Teach
you values—that’s the hinge of all learning in art—values! Relative
values. The worth of this as compared with that. Teach you line—the
infinite variety of line—the tremendous responsibility of line—the
humour—the severity of line. Teach you nature—the goddess from whom
all beauty is drawn, and whose lightest touch has more mystery in it
than all the creations of man. That’s what you want to do. No good
trying to write till you’re nearing thirty—abouts. Learn on canvas how
to ink your paper thoughts. Pack your bag and go to Paris.”
“I believe I will,” exclaimed Wynne. “Where—where should I go when I
get there?”
“Anywhere—Julian—Calarossi. The Quartier is full of ’em. Make for the
Boule Miche, and stop the first boy with a beard. He’ll tell you where
to go.”
PART THREE
PARIS
I
At nine o’clock next evening a slightly confused Wynne Rendall was
seeking a cab midst the din and clatter of the Gare St. Lazare. He had
escaped the escort of several insidious gentlemen who offered their
services as “Guides,” and spoke suggestively of Corybantine revels they
were prepared to exhibit. Wynne had been warned by an amiable Customs
official to have nothing to do with “zes blerdy scoundrills,” so he was
able to reply to their English solicitations, “Pas ce soir, merci,” and
move on in the press of crowds.
He succeeded in attracting the attention of a very aged cab-driver, who
controlled two white steeds, of even greater age, with a pair of scarlet
reins. Him he addressed in his best school French:
“Je desire trouver un hotel très petit et pas trop cher,” he said.
The driver seemed at some difficulty to understand, but when finally he
succeeded in doing so he bade Wynne climb inside, and, gathering up his
reins, shouted a frenzied command to the horses. Seemingly these beasts
were unaffected by his cries, for they moved away in the stateliest
fashion; whereupon the driver rose to his feet and laid about him with a
whip like any Roman charioteer. This produced the desired result, and
the vehicle, swaying perilously, thundered over the cobbles of the
station yard and out into the night.
“This is magnificent,” said Wynne. “Oh, gorgeous!”
His eyes feasted on the broad boulevards—the _cafés_, with their little
tables set upon the pavement beneath the gay striped awning—the
unfamiliar cosmopolitan crowds who jostled along or sat sipping their
syros and bocks at pleasant ease. Also it was very wonderful to be
driving on the wrong side of the road and apparently ignoring all
traffic laws. Once a gendarme with a long, clattering sword held up his
hand to bid them stop, but him the driver ignored, beyond a sharp rattle
of criticism as they brushed by.
At the corner of the Rue St. Honoré a _fiacre_ in front knocked a man
off his bicycle, and proceeded as though nothing had happened. The
unfortunate cyclist picked himself up and started in pursuit, leaving
his bicycle lying in the highway. A motor bus, considering such an
obstacle unworthy of changing its course to avoid, ran over it, crushing
the frame and rims, and Wynne’s cab, following behind, did likewise.
Nobody seemed to care. Passers-by scarcely wasted a glance over the
affair. A desire to cheer possessed Wynne. It seemed he had arrived at
the City of Harlequinade, where the wildest follies were counted to be
wise.
Further down the road a fight was in progress. No blows were exchanged,
but the disputants grabbed and clawed at each other’s clothing. They
ripped out neckties and tore the buttons from waistcoats. They stamped
upon and kicked each other’s hats—pockets were wrenched from coats, and
shirt-tails sprang unexpectedly to view.
Wynne could not help thinking how funny it would be if Wallace were to
appear in Wimbledon High Street with a battered silk hat and his
shirt-tail flapping over his breeches. There was humour in this fight
which seemed to justify it—not blood and staggering figures, such as
one saw outside the publichouses at home on a Saturday night.
Wynne blessed the old gentleman of the National Gallery who had inspired
him to come to Paris.
They passed a great _magasin_ with blazed arch lights, and turned up a
tiny street to the left. Wynne caught a glimpse of its name as the cab
turned the corner. “Rue Croix des Petits Champs.” Then the vehicle
stopped abruptly—so abruptly that the nearside horse fell to his knees
and nearly dragged the driver from the box, who marked his disapproval
by liberal use of the whip. Order being restored, he pointed to a big
arched doorway and cried:
“Voilà! Voilà!”
So Wynne alighted and demanded:
“Comme bien?”
“Cinq francs quatre-vingt-cinq.”
Wynne was unaccustomed to French money, and the centimes conveyed
nothing to him. He proffered four francs and was amazed at the flow of
incomprehensible invective which followed. It was impossible to argue at
anything approaching that speed, so he held up his palm with some silver
in it and said:
“Alors prenez ce que vous voulez.”
The driver accordingly appropriated eight francs, and with a cry of
“’Voir et merci,” whipped up his horses and vanished into the night.
Wynne subsequently learned that the fare should have been about one
shilling and threepence.
He entered the arched gates and found himself in a small courtyard with
a lighted door at the further end. Above this was written, “Hotel du
Monde et Madagascar.”
The idea of referring to Madagascar as though it were a satellite of the
world pleased his sense of humour and warmed his heart toward the new
abode.
The foyer at the hotel was quite small, and there was a little office,
on the immediate right of the entrance, in which sat a sweet-looking old
lady dressed in black, and wearing a beautifully laundered cap.
Wynne gave her good evening, stated that he wanted a room, “très bon
marché,” and told her his name.
“Et moi je suis Rosalie,” returned the little concierge, with the
sweetest smile imaginable.
Certainly he could have a room—it was on the fifth floor, and cost but
twenty francs a month. That he would like it she was sure, since it was
“clair, propre et tout ce qu’il faut.” She would ring for Benoit, who
was “un garçon bien gentil,” although suffering from “mal é la
poitrine,” which would carry him off all too soon. “Qui, c’est triste!”
Benoit’s appearance, when eventually he arrived, did not give rise to
any immediate anxiety regarding his health. He was a big and cheerful
man, beside whom Wynne felt painfully insignificant. Taking possession
of the bag, Benoit led the way up many flights of stairs, until at last
they arrived at the fifth floor. Here he threw open a door and said:
“Voilà! N’est-ce pas?”
Wynne’s reply, “C’est de luxe,” amused Benoit greatly, who sat on the
bed to enjoy a hearty laugh.
While the bag was being unpacked, Benoit supplied information regarding
Parisian life. Thus Wynne learnt that the average boarder in small
French hotels went out for his meals and his bath. By this means either
one or the other could be taken at the convenience of the individual,
who was therefore in no way constrained to be at a certain place at any
specified hour. Wynne inquired how far it was to the Quartier Latin, and
was greatly delighted to learn that ten minutes’ walk would land him
there.
Many students from the ateliers lodged at the hotel, he discovered, some
of whom were “bien gentil,” and others “méchant.”
“Aprés le Bal Quatres Arts! O c’était terrible!” He, Benoit, was
constrained to prevent a certain young Englishman, who habitually was
“tout à fait milord,” from importing to his apartment a lady dressed as
Britannia, whom he claimed as his bride. It was undoubtedly very droll,
and he was sympathetic, but the good name of the house came first, and
since no marriage lines were available, husband and wife were forced to
celebrate their nuptials apart. Doubtless the young man was carried away
by patriotism, but if the excellent “Madame” had heard of such goings on
she would have been in a fine rage.
Further advices were given as to where Wynne would do well to seek his
food. He would find excellent hospitality “chez Bouillon Aristide” at
the corner, and a little further down the Rue St. Honoré was a creamery
whose chocolate and croissons would compare with those set upon the
table of the President.
He urged Wynne to avoid sliding on the polished floor of his bedroom,
since the practice provided him with additional labour in the mornings.
Also he volunteered the remark that the room was popular because it was
very amusing.
Wynne liked the room, but could not at the time comprehend in what sense
the word amusing could be associated with it. When he awoke the
following morning an explanation arose, for his ears were filled with
the sound of girls’ voices singing a merry song.
Opening his eyes he observed through the window an apartment some twenty
feet away on the other side of the courtyard. Herein sat perhaps a dozen
little workgirls, plaiting and combing long switches of false hair. They
were employés of a perruquier, and cheerful, light-hearted souls they
appeared to be. When he sat up in bed they greeted him with the
friendliest gaiety, giving thanks that their fears that he might be dead
were not realized.
Wynne felt a little embarrassed having to make his toilet in these
circumstances. He remained between the sheets indecisively until forced
to rise by the friendly chaffery from opposite. Then he grabbed his
clothes from the chair and ran the gauntlet to the corner of the room,
where he might dress without being observed.
This manœuvre excited gusts of merriment, in which he found himself
joining very heartily.
After all, why should one mind dressing before an audience? It was
ridiculous to be super-modest over such trifles. He realized with a
start that his own stock of unconventionalism was thoroughly outclassed
by these simple little midinettes, and this being so, he at once
conceived for them a very profound esteem.
Accordingly, with a hairbrush in one hand and his braces trailing behind
him, he stepped upon the tiny balcony and said:
“Bon jour. Je pense que vous êtes très, très douce les toutes.”
The cordial reception accorded to this sentiment encouraged him to
further efforts. He found, however, that his stock of French was
insufficient for the needs of the occasion. After a laborious endeavour
to express appreciation for their sunny broad-minded temperaments and to
include a few words stating that his mission in life was to inculcate a
similar breadth of mind to the hide-bound pedants who infested the
world, he was compelled to stop for lack of the material to proceed.
His merry audience, in spite of having failed to understand a single
word, cheered the speech very generously, and blew him a cloud of aerial
kisses.
II
Wynne Rendall took his chocolate and immersed his roll therein with all
the skill of a Parisian, and later, in a very rapturous frame of mind,
crossed the Seine by the Pont des Arts and made his way to the Rue du
Dragon. He had no difficulty in discovering the Atelier Julien, and
addressing himself to a bearded and aproned old gentleman who sat on a
high stool in a very small office.
He had feared there might be difficulty in gaining admission, since he
could claim no previous experience of the plastic arts, but in this his
misgivings proved groundless. It was merely a matter of paying one’s
fee—a small fee at that—and taking one’s place.
Asked if he had any choice of masters, he shook his head. He was placed
therefore under the guardianship of Le Maître Jean Paul Laurens, a man
“both strong and brilliant,” whose studio was on the first floor.
Since he desired to spend the day seeing Paris, and purchasing colours
and canvas, Wynne decided he would not start work until the morrow.
“Bien; demain matin à huit heures! Très bien. Au ’voir.”
III
It was splendid to reflect that he was a full-blown student of the
Quartier, thought Wynne, as with ringing steps he swung along the narrow
thoroughfares. He wished Uncle Clem had been there to witness his glory.
Never before had he felt so confident of his own personality. Rivulets
of water danced and chattered along the gutters reflecting the gladness
of his mood—the sun shone gloriously on the tall white houses. Quaint
old men with baskets of merchandise piped beseechingly on tiny horns.
Thousands of purple-dyed eggs filled the shop windows, and the
wonderful, everchanging, raffish, homely crowds chattered, gesticulated
and hurried along in ceaseless streams.
Wynne was possessed with a foolish desire to shake hands with every one
he met, and tell them all about himself; to explain why he had come, and
to give them a glimpse of the workings of his many-sided nature. A
measure of common sense dissuaded him from so doing, but he sang as he
walked, and expanded his narrow chest to its fullest capacity. Presently
he found himself by the riverside, and hovered awhile over the
book-sellers’ stalls perched on the stone copings of the embankment. At
one of these he bought a translation of Shakespeare’s works, an old
volume of Balzac, and some paper-bound copies of the plays of Molière.
It was the first time he had rummaged among books, and the experience
was delightful. The mere touch of them sent a thrill of learning through
his being.
For awhile he hovered by the riverside watching the energetic
steamboats—the sober barges—and the great floating warehouses moored
by the tow-path. Everywhere were people sketching—placid and
preoccupied. No crowds of curious urchins jostled around them with
stupid comments, as was always the case at home when any one had the
temerity to bring their colour-box into the open day.
Paris respected its artists, and gave them as great seclusion out of
doors as in their own studios. Sombre sportsmen, rodded and
camp-stooled, lined the banks and strove to catch the elusive gudgeon.
It seemed as though their attention was centred anywhere but upon the
float. Their eyes rested dreamily on the spanned arches of Pont Neuf or
the flying buttresses of Notre Dame, while invisible fish in the green
waters beneath worried the bait from the hook with perfect immunity from
danger.
To the island of Notre Dame Wynne directed his steps, and spent an hour
of sheer delight with imagination let loose. Romance breathed in the air
around him, and memory of dead things sprang to life. He pictured
himself back in Dumas’ days—with king’s men and
cardinals—swashbuckling on the footway—with masked ladies flitting
into dark doorways, and the tinkle of blade against blade from some
courtyard near at hand.
Chance led him to enter a low, stone building by one of the bridges. All
manner of men and women passed in and out of this place, and Wynne
followed the general lead. There was a glass compartment across the far
side of the hall, before which a large crowd was assembled. A nursemaid
wheeling a perambulator, and a group of blue-smocked, pipe-smoking
ouvriers hid from view what the case contained.
The exhibits, whatever they might be, were clearly very popular. Wynne
reflected that probably they were Napoleonic relics, or maybe the crown
jewels, when a rift in the crowd betrayed the fact that the case was
full of dead men. With heads tilted at shy and foolish angles, with
bodies lolling limply against the sloped marble slabs, the corpses of
the Seine bleared stupidly at the quick.
It was the first time Wynne had looked on the face of the dead, and the
sight chilled him with a faint, freezing sickness.
“Oh, God, how awful!” he muttered, and turned to go, but the way before
him was barred by fresh arrivals. “I want to get out,” he cried, but no
one heeded him. He began to struggle, when a firm hand fell on his
shoulder, and a voice, speaking with a Southern American accent, said:
“Calm down, son. What’s the trouble?”
Wynne looked up and saw a tall, broad-shouldered man smiling upon him.
He wore a blue serge shirt, a pair of sailor’s breeches, and no hat. His
black, sleek hair hung loosely over his left temple.
“It’s horrible,” said Wynne. “I want to get away.”
“Yer wrong,” came the answer. “Yer wan’ to stop. The spirit of Paris
abides in this place. There’s no intensive life without an intensive
death. Only when they come here do they realize how very much alive they
are. Sometimes I believe the Morgue is the greatest tonic in this city.
Now jest pull up and we’ll step round the cases together.”
Wynne shook his head.
“Yer not afraid?”
“No, but—it seems so callous, and—I want to live—and do great
things—wonders. I don’t want to stare at a row of corpses.”
“There’s a fellow there”—he nodded his head toward the case—“who was
an artist. He wanted to live and perform wonders too. Then he found out
that he couldn’t—found out that a dozen idle, do-nothing fellows could
outclass him at every turn. What happens? He puts a brick in pocket and
jumps. Seems to me, with your ideas, you might learn something from the
page of those cold features.”
“All right,” said Wynne; “lead away.”
They joined the crowd that slowly filed past the silent watchers.
“I’m glad I saw them,” he said, as they turned once more toward the
door. “I never realized before what full-stop meant. It makes one feel
the need to get on—and on. Death is so horribly conclusive.”
He drew a breath of air gratefully as they came into the sunlight.
“A cure for slackers, eh?” said the American.
“Yes—rather.”
He was a pleasant fellow, the American, and volunteered to share a table
at lunch.
“Painting student?” he asked.
“I’m making a start tomorrow at Julien’s.”
“Then pay for your drink when the Massier introduces himself, and if you
know a rorty song sing it for all you’re worth.”
After lunch he helped Wynne buy colours, brushes, and a beautiful walnut
palette, then wished him luck and departed.
They never met again. Paris is the place of quick friendships and
equally quick partings. Races lose their characteristic shyness under
the Paris sun. Strangers accost each other and join in day-long or
night-long festivities, exchange their most intimate thoughts, and
finally go their ways without even so much as asking each other’s names.
IV
Wynne arrived at the Atelier Jean Paul Laurens at a quarter to the hour
of eight A. M. He was the first comer, and had a moment’s leisure to
survey his surroundings. The studio itself was not large, and as high as
the arm could reach the walls were plastered, generations deep, with
palette scrapings. Above in great profusion were studies from the nude,
heads and charcoal drawings in every possible mood of form and light. To
Wynne, hitherto accustomed to regard paintings as pictures, these
canvases struck a note of brutal coarseness, offending his æsthetic
sensibilities. They seemed no more than men and women stripped of their
clothing and indecently exposed.
“God! I won’t paint like that,” he thought.
From a great pile of easels in the corner he selected one and disposed
it a few feet away from the model’s throne; which done, he set his
palette with an infinite number of small dabs of colour. He thrust a few
brushes through the thumb-hole, and was ready to make a start when the
time arrived.
Presently a little Italian girl, with heavy gold rings in her ears, and
a coloured kerchief over her head, came in and nodded a greeting.
“Nouveau?” she inquired.
“Oui,” replied Wynne.
She smiled agreeably, and seating herself on the throne kicked her shoes
behind a screen and pulled off her stockings.
“O-ooo!” she shivered, “c’est pas chaud.”
She nodded toward the stove, and Wynne was glad of the opportunity to
put on some coal, since he was conscious of some small uneasiness, alone
and unoccupied while the maiden disrobed. He took as long as possible,
and when he had finished discovered that she had finished too, and was
calling upon him to provide her with a “couverture.” This he sought and
handed to her, not entirely without embarrassment.
“Merci, Bébé,” said the Italian, and draped the old curtain around
herself.
From the passage outside came the sound of many footsteps—a clamour of
voices, and a moment later some twenty students clattered into the
studio, with others at their heels. They were men of all ages and every
nationality—some dressed as typical art students, others as
conventionally attired as any young gentleman from Bond Street. An
impulse which they shared in common was to make a noise, and in this
they achieved a very high standard of perfection. A great variety of
sounds were produced, mostly patterned from the fowl-run or the asses’
stall. One serious-minded and bearded boy devoted his ingenuity to
reproducing the noise of a motor horn; while another, leaping to the
model’s throne, hailed the dawn like any chanticleer. Espying Wynne’s
beautifully white canvas perched upon its easel, a red-headed Alsatian
flung a tabouret which swept all before it, and sent the new palette
planing to the floor.
“What the devil do you mean by that?” cried Wynne, and was told to “Shut
up, you silly ass. Don’t ask for trouble,” by an English voice at the
back of the crowd.
At this moment a very precise little Frenchman stepped forward and made
a bow.
“Moi je suis le Massier,” he announced, and asked if Wynne were prepared
to stand a drink to the students. Twelve francs was the sum
required—payable in advance.
The money was produced, whereat every one, including the model, who had
borrowed a long painter’s coat for the occasion, rushed from the studio.
Half the crowd became wedged in the doorway, and the other half fell
down the stairs _en masse_. Wynne was swept along by the tidal wave at
the rear, and trod on many prostrate pioneers before swinging out into
the Rue du Dragon. There was a small café fifty yards distant, and
thither they raced, sweeping every one from the pavements as they ran.
Further jostling ensued at the doors of the café, but finally every one
struggled through and found accommodation.
A chair was set upon a table and Wynne invited to occupy it. This he did
with very great satisfaction and a kingly feeling. Busy waiters below
hurried round with trays, bearing glasses of black coffee, and a very
innocuous fluid known as “grog Americaine.”
When all had been served the Massier called upon the “nouveau” to give a
song, and reminded him that failure to do so might result in unhappy
consequences.
So Wynne stood upon the chair, with his head touching the ceiling, and
sang several questionable limericks at the top of his voice. Hardly a
soul understood the words, but from the spirit of their delivery they
judged them to be indecent and bawdy, and as such very acceptable to
hear. Moreover, there was a refrain in which all were able to join, and
this in itself readily popularized the effort.
The Massier personally complimented the vocalist, and suggested that the
occasion was almost sufficient to justify a barricade.
Cries were raised that nothing short of the barricade could be
contemplated, and in an instant all the chairs and tables from the café
were cast outside into the street. Skilled at their work, the
barricaders set one table against the other with chairs before them. The
company then seated itself and began to sing. Ladies from adjoining
houses leaned out and threw smiles of encouragement, and the traffic in
both directions ceased to flow.
Many and strange were the songs sung, and they dealt with life and
adventure of a coarse but frisky kind.
Thus the passers-by learned what befell an officer who came across the
Rhine, a sturdy fellow with an eye for a maid, and a compelling way with
him to wit. Some there were who glowered disapprovingly at this morning
madness, but more generally the audience were sympathetic, and yielded
to the student the right of levity.
All would have gone well but for a surly dray-driver, who, wearying of
the hold-up, urged his hairies into the midmost table with a view to
breaking the barricade. This churlish act excited the liveliest
activity. The horses were drawn from the shafts and led forthwith into a
small greengrocer’s shop, where they feasted royally upon the carrots
and swedes basketed in abundance about them. The owner of the shop and
the driver raised their voices in protest, and their cries attracted the
attention of the patron of the café. This good man, supported by three
waiters, came forth and argued that the jest had gone far enough.
In so doing he was ill-advised, for in Paris a kill-joy invariably
prejudices his own popularity. Some of the students formed a cordon
about the good man and his staff, while others seized the chairs and
tables and piled them on the tops of the waiting vehicles. This done
they started the horses with cries and blows, and a moment later the
furniture was careering up the street in all directions.
“C’est fini,” said the Massier.
The cordon broke, Monsieur le Patron and his garçons were away in
pursuit, and the students, headed by the bare-footed Italian girl in her
paint-smeared jacket, turned once more to their labours.
Wynne was almost exhausted with laughter. It seemed impossible such
revels could be conducted by perfectly sober men before half-past eight
in the morning. Perhaps strangest of all was the suddenness with which
the robes of gaiety were discarded, for ten minutes later each man was
at his easel setting out his palette as soberly as a city clerk plays
dominoes during the luncheon hour.
V
It should be stated that Wynne Rendall showed small skill as a painter.
He approached the task with a pleasant conviction that he would at least
rival if not excel the ordinary run of students. At school he had been
able to achieve clever little caricatures of masters and boys, and he
had thought to draw from life would be a simpler matter altogether. To
his chagrin he discovered that he was not able even to place the figure
roughly upon a canvas. He realized the intention of the pose, but his
efforts to convey it were futile and grotesque.
With jealous irritation he observed how the other students dashed in the
rough constructive features of a figure with sure sense of proportion
and animation.
“Wha’ are ye trying to do?” inquired a Scotch lad, who had abandoned his
work for the pleasure of watching Wynne’s confusion. “Mon, it’s awfu’.
Have ye no drawn from the antique?”
Wynne was not disposed to give himself away, although the words made him
hot with shame.
“Every one has his own method,” he retorted.
“A’mitted, but there’s no meethod in yon. Stand awa’ a meenit.” And
before Wynne had time to protest he struck a dozen red lines upon the
canvas which gave an almost instantaneous likeness to the subject.
“Leave it alone,” said Wynne. “It isn’t yours.”
“I need hairdly say I’m glad. Now look ye here. Ye know naything, and a
leetle ceevil attention will profit ye.”
He did not pay the slightest heed to Wynne’s sulky rejoinder, but,
sucking at his pipe, continued to work on the canvas with great
dexterity and skill. Presently he wearied of the occupation, and Wynne
came back to his own with a somewhat chastened spirit.
It is an understood thing in the ateliers that every one criticizes
every one else, and supports his theories by painting on the canvas he
may be discussing. Before the day was out half a dozen different men
left their mark on Wynne’s study. The most irritating feature about this
practice was the coincidence that they always obliterated some little
passage with which he was pleased. To quote one instance, he had
succeeded rather happily in the treatment of an eye, imparting to it a
sparkle and lustre that gave him profound satisfaction. He could have
screamed with rage when the red-headed Alsatian, dipping his thumb in
some raw umber, blotted it out, saying sweetly:
“It is not that it is an eye—it is a shadow that it should be.”
A similar experience occurred when, a week later, the great Jean Paul
Laurens halted in amazement and disgust before his performance.
“This,” said he, “is a series of trivial incidents, of disjointed
details! To we artists the human figure is a mass of light and shade. It
is not made up of legs and hands, and breasts, and ears and teeth.
No—by the good God, no!”
With which he seized a brush and scrabbled a quantity of flake white
over the entire surface.
“Good!” he said. “It is finished.” And passed on to the next.
Thinking the matter over in bed that night Wynne realized he had learnt
a great and valuable lesson: breadth of view—visualizing life as a
whole. It was knowledge that could be applied to almost everything.
Detail merely existed as part of the whole, but the whole was not
arrived at by assembling detail.
The same would apply, he perceived, to every art, to business, too, and
to life in general. He began to understand how it was possible for
people like Wallace and his father to have their place in the scheme of
things. They ceased to exist as individual items, brought into undue
prominence by enforced propinquity, but became parts of a great
machinery whose functions were too mighty to comprehend. These were the
shadows which gave tone-value to the high-lights. They were vital and
essential, and without them there would be no contrast, no variety,
nothing but flat levels—dull and marshy—and never a hill on the
horizon showing purple in the morning sun.
“I must learn this trade of painting,” said Wynne, “it’s the short road
to all knowledge.”
He flung himself into the work with an energy truly remarkable. From
early morning till midnight he battled with the craft, and thought and
talked of nothing else. In the cafés, where students met and thrashed
out their thousand ideas, Wynne was well bethought, for although his
skill with a brush was small he could advance and support a theory with
the liveliest talker in the Quartier. His success in argument was,
perhaps, not altogether of advantage to his immortal soul, since it led
him to cultivate a cynical attitude toward most affairs. He very readily
became conversant with the works of the Masters, old and new, and
praised or attacked them with great impartiality. Preferably he would
detract from accepted geniuses, and deliver the most scathing criticisms
against pictures before which mankind had prostrated itself for
centuries. One day he would admit of the value of no artist save Manet,
and another would accuse him of possessing neither skill nor artistry,
but merely “a singularly adroit knack of expressing vulgarity.”
He did not attempt to be honest in regard to his points of view, being
perfectly satisfied so long as he could hold a controversial opinion.
Not infrequently high words would result from these discussions, and on
one occasion a table was overset, glasses smashed, and a chair flung.
Police arrived on the scene, and Wynne and three companions spent the
night in a lockup. This he did not mind in the least, and continued to
air his views in the small hours of the morning until threatened with
solitary confinement unless he desisted.
VI
On the tenth week after his arrival in Paris, Wynne’s money gave out. He
had not bothered to consider what he should do when this happened, and
as a result poverty seized him unprepared.
To do him justice he did not bother in the least as to the future of his
bodily welfare, but was distressed beyond expression at the thought of
abandoning his studies.
A wild idea possessed him to sell some of his future years for a few
more terms at the studio. He even went to the length of discussing the
project with the Massier. This gentleman, however, shook his head
dubiously.
“Impossible,” he said.
“Why?” said Wynne. “I’ll give two-thirds of all I earn for the next
three years to any one who’ll finance me now.”
“No doubt; but, monsieur, philanthropists are few in the Quartier—and
your painting!” He made an expressive gesture. “Your paintings will
never be sold. He who gave the money would see it again—never! I am
sorry—it is sad—but what would you?”
Wynne turned away heavy at heart and angry, and next morning his place
before the throne was vacant.
VII
Of all cities in the world Paris is the least hospitable to a bankrupt.
It does not ask a man to be rich, and it does not mind if he be poor,
for the great Parisian heart is warm to either state, but for the man
who is destitute there is no place in its affections.
Your Quartier art student is an easy-going fellow in most directions,
who will share his wine and his love with amiable impartiality, but he
is proof against the borrower’s craft, and will do anything rather than
lend money.
Of this circumstance Wynne was already aware, and in a sense was glad
that it should be so. He was not of the kind who borrow, but had it been
easy to negotiate a loan his awkward plight might have weighed against
the maintenance of his ideals.
As he walked up the Rue Buonaparte, his colour-box swinging in his hand,
he reflected that the moment had come to prove his fibre. Between
himself and starvation was a sum amounting to one franc fifty centimes,
barely enough to purchase a couple of modest meals.
“This time the day after tomorrow I shall be very hungry,” he said.
He was not alarmed at the prospect—and, indeed, he regarded it with a
queer sense of excitement. By some twist of imagination he conceived
that an adventurous credit was reflected upon himself by the very
emptiness of his pockets. Tradition showed that most of the world’s
great artists had passed through straitened circumstances, wherefore it
was only right and proper he should do otherwise. Certainly there was no
very manifest advantage in starving, but it would be pleasant to reflect
that one _had_ starved. Almost he wished he could banish the still
haunting flavour of the chocolate he had drunk at his _petit déjeuner_,
and feel the pangs of hunger tormenting his vitals. He consoled himself
with the thought that these would occur soon enough. In the meantime it
would be well to consider what line of action he proposed to take. The
impulse to do a sketch and carry it to market he dismissed at once. The
schools had taught him that whatever virtues his artistry might possess,
they were not of a saleable kind. It was therefore folly to waste his
money in buying a good canvas which would undoubtedly be spoilt.
“No good,” he argued. “No good at all. I must do something that I can
do.”
On the embankment he was accosted by the keeper of a bookstall which of
late he had patronized freely.
“I have here a copy of the verses of Sully Prudhomme,” said the man,
“and the price is but one franc. Such a chance will scarcely arrive
again.”
It was sheer bravado, but Wynne bought the little volume without so much
as an attempt to beat down the price. He felt no end of a fine fellow as
he pocketed it and strolled away. Yet, curiously enough, he had not gone
far before a panic seized him and he longed to rush back and beg for his
money to be returned.
“That’s silly,” he told himself—“cowardly.” His hand stole to his
pocket and took comfort from the feel of the fifty centime piece which
remained.
“If I were really a man I’d spend that too.”
And spend it he did, but on a long loaf of stale bread which he brought
back with him to the hotel.
He found Benoit at his interminable occupation of polishing the bedroom
floor. This duty was performed by means of a flat brush strapped to the
sole of the boot. The excellent fellow, while so employed, resembled a
chicken scratching in straw for oats. Polishing had become a second
nature to Benoit. He polished while he made beds, he polished while he
emptied slops, he polished while he indulged in his not infrequent
spells of religious rumination.
It was in this latter state of mind Wynne found him, and for want of a
better confidant explained his unfortunate predicament.
“Benoit,” he said, “I am ruined—utterly ruined and penniless.”
“That,” replied the garçon, “is a pity, since I had had in mind that on
the morrow you would be giving me five francs.”
It is the custom to give five francs to the garçon at the beginning of
each month.
“Your chances of getting it, Benoit, are very remote.”
“It is to be hoped you will, then, be able to give me ten in the month
which follows.”
“I pray that it may be so. In the meantime what am I to do that I may
subsist?”
“That is a matter which rests with the good God.”
“Suing your pardon, I prefer to believe that it rests with me, Benoit.”
“It is inferior! I remark that you already possess bread.”
“It is the smaller part of my possessions.”
“And the larger, m’sieur?”
“Brains, Benoit—brains.”
“For myself I had rather have of the bread, believing it to be the more
substantial blessing.”
“Which proves, Benoit, that you speak without consideration. A fool and
his loaf are soon parted, but a wise man has that within his head which
will stock a bakery.”
“May it prove so with you, m’sieur.”
“A thousand thanks. But, to return to our muttons, how am I to use my
brains to best advantage?”
“By considering the lives of the saints, m’sieur.”
“A pious answer, Benoit, but I seek to use them to more profitable
account. When I am relieved of the immediate anxiety of prematurely
meeting these personages, I shall doubtless be better able to direct my
thoughts toward them.”
“I can only repeat, m’sieur, that in divine consideration lies the
province of the brain. If it be the body you desire to profit, then,
beyond doubt, it is your hands must seek employment.”
“But I have no skill of the hands, Benoit.”
“There is no great skill required, m’sieur, to carry a basket at Les
Arles.”[1]
“I urge you, Benoit, to avoid words of folly. Am I of the fibre to lift
crates from a market cart? And if I were, do you suppose I could adjust
my intellect to so clumsy a calling?”
“It is better, m’sieur, to engage upon a humble task than to wallow with
the gudgeon of the Seine.”
“Pooh! Benoit, am I a likely suicide?”
“Given no meat, a man will drink betimes over-deeply of the water.”
The answer and memory of a certain grotesque figure in the Morgue gave
Wynne to pause.
“You are a cold comforter,” he said. “Have you no happier suggestion to
offer?”
“I speak from knowledge, m’sieur. If you are destitute you must be
content with the smallest blessings.”
“But I have intellect, Benoit, in larger measure than most. Is there no
market for intellect in this city of Paris?”
“There will be better intellects than yours that sleep without a roof in
Paris tonight. Why should you, a stranger, look to France to buy your
thoughts?”
“Because France alone, of all countries, holds out the hand of welcome
to Art.”
“It may be so—and it may be in so doing she fills her own coffers.
These are matters which I do not understand, but I know well, and well
enough, that the stranger may learn an art in this city, but he cannot
sell it here. M’sieur, when your bread is eaten I would advise that you
go to Les Arles and offer your hands. There is always a value for hands,
even though it be but very small, and maybe, by using them, you would in
the end find profit for the brain.”
“Hum!” said Wynne despondently, “of all men you are the most cheerless.”
“But indeed no. If my mind was melancholy it was but to suit an occasion
of some sadness. Let us, if you will, speak of lighter affairs.”
But since that line of conversation inevitably led to descriptions of
_jeunes filles_ who at one time or another had confided their affections
over-deeply to Benoit’s keeping, Wynne declined the invitation, and,
picking up his cap, descended the stairs and walked towards the Louvre.
The discussion had done little to brighten his horizon, and he was
oppressed with misgivings as he passed through the streets. Obviously it
was absurd to attach importance to the words of an ignorant _valet de
chambre_. On the other hand, there was a degree of probability in what
he had said which could not be lightly dismissed.
Suddenly an idea possessed him, and his spirits rose with a leap. It
occurred from the memory of a remark made by the patron of a _brasserie_
in the Boule Miche.
“Ah, monsieur,” he had said, “it is long since we entertained a customer
who spoke with such inspiration on so many subjects.”
The remark had been made after a long sitting in which Wynne had held
the attention of a dozen students for several hours while he threw off
his red-hot views on art and life in general. As a result the little
absorbent mats, upon which the glasses stand, and which mark the number
of drinks each man has taken, had piled high.
“I measure the value of conversation,” the patron had continued, “by the
amount of bock which is consumed, and tonight has surpassed all previous
records. I trust m’sieur will return many times, and place me even more
deeply in his debt.”
“By Heaven,” thought Wynne, “I believe he’d pay me a salary to talk.”
So greatly did the belief take hold of him that, unthinkingly, he sprang
upon a tram, only to spring off again with the recollection that he had
not the wherewithal to pay the fare.
M. le Patron greeted Wynne with amiable courtesy, and invited him to be
seated, asking at the same time what manner of drink would be agreeable
to his taste.
“I want nothing,” said Wynne, “but the privilege of a few moments’
conversation.”
“That will be delightful; then we will sit together.”
“I do not know if you remember an evening a short while ago when I was
here.”
“It is, indeed, one of my pleasantest recollections.”
“On that occasion you were good enough to observe that my conversation
resulted in a marked increase in your sales of liquor.”
“And indeed, m’sieur, it was no less than the truth. The nimbleness of
m’sieur’s wit, the charm of his address, and the adroitness of his
argument are only comparable to those of that most admirable Bohemian,
Monsieur Robinson, who, I have no doubt, is well known in England.”
“Probably,” said Wynne, “although I have never heard of him. But to
return. I have come here today to make you a business proposition.”
“It is very kind.”
“Not at all. I am obliged to do something of the sort owing to financial
difficulties which have suddenly arisen.”
“Tch-tch-tch! How very provoking.”
It was noticeable, however, that the brow of M. le Patron had clouded,
and his sympathy was not wholly genuine. Wynne, however, was paying more
attention to himself than to the attitude of his hearer.
“What I was about to suggest is this. Encouraged by your words of a
month ago, I am willing to occupy a table at your café each night, and
to discourse upon all the burning questions of the day. In return for
this small service and the undoubted credit it will bring to the
establishment, I put forward that you should offer me the hospitality of
free meals and a trifle of twenty francs a week for my expenses.”
He delivered the speech with an air of cordiality and condescension
designed to introduce the offer in the most favourable light. Hearing
his words as he spoke them there remained small doubt in his mind that
the astute Frenchman would embrace the opportunity with gratitude. In
this, however, he was sadly at fault.
“M’sieur is an original,” came the answer; “but he can hardly be
serious.”
“I am entirely serious.”
“Then I fear that, with due regret, I must decline.”
“Decline? But—but the notion was originally your own. I should not have
suggested it had it not been that you—”
“Pardon, m’sieur, I see the fault was mine, and my words evidently
placed m’sieur under a misapprehension. He will readily perceive,
however, that, as patron, it is my duty to be affable, and, although it
desolates me to confess so much, it has been my long habit to express to
all my more loquacious guests precisely the same sentiments which I
addressed to m’sieur on the evening of which he spoke.”
“Oh! has it?” said Wynne, rather dully. “Then there’s no more to be
said.”
“Alas! no. It is sad, but what would you? Au revoir, m’sieur.”
“Au ’voir.” He moved a pace away, then turned. “I suppose you haven’t
any sort of job you could offer me?”
“Unhappily!” said the patron, and turned to welcome a new arrival.
“I shan’t give up,” muttered Wynne, as he walked moodily down the busy
boulevard. “After all, it was only a first attempt.”
But he did not sleep very easily that night. He lay with his eyes open
in the dark and wondered what would befall him—where he would be in a
week’s time—if what Benoit had said were true. These and a thousand
perplexing fears and fancies raced and jostled through his brain.
Presently one big thought rose and dominated all the rest.
“I mustn’t forget any of this. It is all valuable—all part of the
lesson—part of the training—part of the price which a climber has to
pay.”
Then he thought of The Cedars, and of Wallace setting forth to the City
after a “good” breakfast.
Wallace would have “sensible” boots, and would carry an umbrella.
Wallace would exchange views on the subject of politics or chip-carving
with other folk as sober as himself. Wallace would smirk at his
employer, and would eat a Cambridge sausage for his lunch. Wallace would
go to bed at 10.30 P. M. that he might be ready to do these things again
on the morrow. With this reflection there came to Wynne a very glorious
satisfaction.
“I wouldn’t change with you,” he said, and turning on his side fell into
a comfortable and easy sleep.
-----
[1] The Covent Gardens of Paris.
VIII
The sun was shining brightly when he awoke, and all the little
midinettes were in full song.
Wynne sat up in bed and ate a piece of his bread and drank a glass of
water. Asked why he did so, he cheerfully replied,
“Moi, je suis ruiné.”
Whereupon the maidens laughed very heartily and said he was a droll.
Wynne had become quite used to the little audience across the way and
scarcely took them into consideration. Women, as such, made little or no
impression upon him. He liked them well enough, but never cared to
better his knowledge or acquaintance with any with whom he had come into
contact. Physically they made not the slightest appeal to him—his
senses were inert toward the impulse of sex, and he was given to
criticize contemptuously those of his companions who staked their
emotions in the ways of passion.
“Do not imagine I suffer from moral convictions,” he would say; “but,
according to my views, you attach an importance to these matters out of
all relation to their value.”
The sentence had inflamed to a very high degree the student to whom it
was addressed.
“Fool! Fish!” he had shouted, by way of argument; and again, “Fish!
Fish!”
To a running fire of semi-serious sympathy Wynne dressed himself and
went out. In a sense he was a little distressed to sacrifice his
accustomed cup of early morning chocolate—but this, he argued, was a
matter of small concern. A plethora of victuals stagnates the mind, and
on this day he had every reason to desire a clear head.
In the Elysée Gardens he found a bench and contracted his brow in
meditation. What, he ruminated, were the essentials required to gain a
livelihood? Obviously there was a place for every one in this world, or
mankind would not survive the ordeal of birth. There was a place for
people of every kind of intelligence—a glance at the passers-by proved
it, and proved that even the stupid may sometimes prosper. This being
so, it was obvious that the wise must prosper even more greatly.
“What have I got to sell?” he asked himself. “What have I got that these
other people desire? What can I do that other people can’t do?”
But though he racked his brain he could find no answer to the questions.
After a while he rose and started to walk. He walked fast, as if to
escape from his own thoughts, and Fear, so it seemed, walked by his
side.
“Nothing,” said Fear—“you have nothing to sell. Nobody wants
you—nobody will care if you starve.”
“Go away,” said Wynne. “I tell you I am wanted. I say I shan’t starve.”
“Little idiot! What have you learnt to do but sneer at the real worker?
There is no market price for sneers. Sneerers starve—starve! Who are
you to laugh at the honest people of the world?”
“I didn’t laugh. I only pitied.”
“How dared you pity—you, who have achieved nothing? Even that small
errand boy yonder is a worthier citizen than you—he at least earns his
ten francs a week. What have you earned? Only the wage-slave deserves to
be a freeman. What is the value of all this trash of art and æsthetics?
These are only accessories of life—life itself must be learnt before
you can deal in these.”
“But I don’t want to be a wage-slave. I want to be a king.”
“Kingdoms are not won by desire. You must be a subject first.”
“I will be a king—a ruler.”
“A beggar in a week. Come off the heights, little idiot; come down into
the plains and lay a road.”
Wynne stopped suddenly in the great quadrangle of the Louvre.
“Right,” he said. “I’ll be content with small beginnings, but show me
the way to find them.”
And looking across the cobbled yard he saw three people. They were quite
ordinary, and obviously English. There was a middle-aged man with a
disposition toward side-whiskers. He carried an umbrella, and wore a
severe bowler hat. His clothes spoke of prosperity coupled with a due
regard for quiet colours. By his side walked a stout lady, in a
tailor-made dress of suburban cut. Upon her head reposed an example of
Paris millinery, and consciousness of its beauty gave her face an added
tendency to perspire. It was a new hat, and did not seem to have
sympathetic relations with her boots. People who go abroad for the first
time are apt to overestimate the probable amount of wear their
shoe-leather is likely to incur, and guard against walking barefoot by
donning boots whose sturdiness would defeat the depredations of a
Matterhorn climb.
By the lady’s side was a youth—a very unprepossessing youth too. His
face was blotchy, almost as blotchy as his tie. His waistcoat was
double-breasted and of a violent grey. He carried a vulgar little cane
in his yellow-gloved hand.
That the trio were strangers to the city was indisputably betrayed by
the consciousness of their manner and the elaborate precautions they
were at to look at everything. The elder man drew attention to a sewer
grating in the middle of the quadrangle, and pointed with his umbrella
at the pigeons.
Presently they came to a halt, and produced a Baedeker, which provided
them with small enlightenment.
“You are supposed to know French,” Wynne heard the elder man say, “then
why not ask some one how we get into the place.”
“I can’t,” replied the son.
“Well, all I can say is it seems a very funny thing.”
While conversing they failed to observe the approach of an official
guide, who, complete with ingratiating smile and a parchment of
credentials, offered to pilot them round the galleries.
At this they at once took flight, with much head-shaking and confusion,
and had the misfortune to run into the arms of two more of the
fraternity. These two importuned them afresh.
“Certainly not,” said the paterfamilias, as though he had been asked to
participate in some very disgraceful orgy.
An Englishman always runs away from a guide, although sooner or later he
becomes a victim.
Being aware of this fact, one, more assiduous than the rest, followed
them closely with invitations and beseechings, and headed them toward
the spot where Wynne was standing. It was clear that the unhappy people
were greatly unnerved, and equally clear that in a moment they would
cease to retreat, and surrender.
Perceiving this, Wynne was conceived of an idea, and as they came
abreast he brought to bear upon the guide with a quick barrage of Paris
invective. In effect his words were: “These people are my friends—get
out,” although he coloured up the phrase with some generosity. The
victory was instantaneous, and a moment later he had raised his hat and
was saying:
“I don’t think you will be bothered any more.”
“Very kind of you—very kind,” said the father, mopping his brow. “Great
nuisance, these people.” And the lady favoured Wynne with a grateful
smile.
“You were about to visit the galleries?”
“Well, we thought we’d take a look round, you know. The thing to do!”
“Oh, quite. Are you familiar with the Louvre?”
“Er, no—no. Can’t say we are—no.”
“H’m. I was wondering if I should offer to conduct you.”
“Hey? Well. Ho! I see! Not a bad idea! What do you say, Ada?”
“It would be very nice.”
“You do this job, then?”
“Occasionally. Not regularly.”
“Well, I don’t mind. Got to see the things, I s’pose.”
“It is customary, isn’t it?” smiled Wynne.
“Hum. How long will it take to do the place?”
“Five years—perhaps a little less.”
The joke was not well received, so Wynne modified it.
“I could show you the more vital points of interest in a couple of
hours.”
“Two hours, eh? And you’d want how much an hour?”
Wynne considered. “Should we say five francs?” he suggested.
“Jolly sight too much, I call it,” observed the blotchy youth, whose
name was Vincent. “Get a seat at a café chantong for that.”
“Well, what do you say?” said the father.
“I am silent, like the ‘G’ in _chantong_,” replied Wynne. He had begun
to feel the spice of adventure in bartering, and would not give ground.
“We mustn’t forget we are on a holiday,” the mother reminded them.
“Let it go,” said the father; “and I only hope it will be worth it.”
“I can promise you it will be more than worth it,” said Wynne, and led
the way to the entrance.
As they mounted the stairs, blotchy Vincent plucked at his sleeve and
asked, _sotto voce_:
“I say, do you know Paris well?”
“Intimately. Why?”
“I only wondered.”
He nodded toward his parents and shook his head mysteriously.
Wynne was not entirely easy with his conscience at having accepted the
post of guide, and determined to justify himself by a great liberality
of artistic expression. He therefore began to talk with exceeding
rapidity the moment they entered the first gallery.
“This collection is more or less mediocre, although one or two examples
are worthy of attention. This Cupid and Psyche, for instance, may at
first strike you as insipid, but it presents interesting features. You
observe how there is a far greater similarity between the sexes than we
find in nature. It is almost as though, by combining the two, the artist
sought to arrive at the ideal human form.”
“Dare say he did,” admitted the father, rather uncomfortably, while the
mother looked with eyes that saw nothing. Blotchy Vincent, on the other
hand, pricked up his ears at the word “sex.”
“One might sum up this school by saying they were inspired by an
hermaphroditic tendency.”
“M’yes. Well, I don’t think we need inquire into that.
It’s—hardly—er—”
“The same spirit is prevalent in modern French sculpture.”
“I think we will have a look at something else.”
“That’s a nice picture,” said Mrs. Johns—for Johns was the name of the
family. “Very nice, I call that—quiet!”
She directed their attention toward a large canvas depicting a lady
sitting upon a couch with her legs resting straightly on its flat
surface.
“Ah, that _is_ a nice picture,” agreed Mr. Johns.
Vincent, however, lingered before Cupid and Psyche. It did not compare
with sundry picture postcards he had seen, but it held greater
attractions than the portrait of Madame Récamier.
“I consider the colour is disappointing,” observed Wynne—“disappointing
and improbable. When one comes to consider that Madame Récamier held in
her day the most popular Salon in Paris, and reflects that to do so she
must inevitably have been demimondaine of the demimondaine, one is
justified in expecting an added brilliance to the cheeks and an added
scarlet to the lips.”
Hereupon Mr. Johns favoured Wynne with a warning look, which he was
pleased to ignore.
“This particular canvas is illustrative of what somebody—I think Samuel
Butler—said, that a portrait is never so much of the sitter as of the
artist. Shall we take some of the older masters next?”
He led the way to an inner gallery, the Johns family trooping behind
him. As they passed through the arched doorway Mr. and Mrs. Johns
exchanged glances as though to say:
“I think we have made a great mistake introducing this young man into
our God-fearing midst!”
Before the canvases of the Old Masters Wynne expanded his views with
great liberality. Correggio and Botticelli were favoured with a kindly
mention, Rembrandt was patted on the back, and Raphael severely
criticized. An ill-advised appreciation of a canvas by Jordeans brought
upon Mr. Johns a vigorous attack:
“Oh, believe me, very second-rate indeed. A mere copyist of Rubens, who,
himself, in no way justified the position of being a target at which a
self-respecting artist should aim. Here is a Titian now—”
“Oh, really!” said Mrs. Johns. “I’ve often heard of Titian red. Do you
see, father, that’s a Titian.”
“Oh yes,” said Mr. Johns, consulting his catalogue. “So it is. Seems
good!”
“Very wonderful how the colours last so long. Isn’t it pretty, Vincent?”
“I don’t know,” said Vincent, who was very bored. “Dare say it’s all
right.”
“I wonder,” remarked Wynne, “if you can detect the fault in that
picture.”
Mr. and Mrs. Johns half closed their eyes, by which means they fondly
believed faults were more easily detected. After much consideration they
produced the joint statement that it looked “a little funny—I don’t
know!”
“The fault lies in the fact that there are no faults—which, to my way
of thinking, is very heinous.”
“That sounds nonsense to me,” said Mr. Johns, who was getting heartily
sick of the whole exposition.
“Not at all. There must be impurity to emphasize purity. Where would the
Church be were it not for sinners? What would be the worth of virtue if
there were no vice? Therefore I contend that nothing is so imperfect as
perfection.”
Carried away by his own arguments, Wynne hurried his charges along to
Leonardo’s “Baptist.”
Here he drew breath and started to speak afresh.
“An amazingly happy performance—instinct with life, saturated with
humour. You notice the same classic tendency towards sexlessness? In my
opinion this is all a painting should be. There is something
astonishingly compelling in every line of the form and features.”
“She is certainly very pleasant-looking,” said Mrs. Johns. “Who was the
young lady?”
“John the Baptist, madam.”
At this Mr. Johns very properly interposed with:
“I don’t tolerate jokes about the Bible, young man.”
Even Vincent looked as though he expected Wynne to be struck down by
some divine and correcting hand. Mrs. Johns was frankly horrified.
“Look at your catalogue,” said Wynne.
This advice Mr. Johns accepted, but even the printed words failed to
convince him.
“If that’s John the Baptist,” he remarked, “all I can say is that it’s
not _my_ idea of John the Baptist.”
“What is your idea, sir.”
“An elderly gentleman with a beard.”
“With all respect, I think Leonardo’s is preferable. Youth is more
appealing than middle age. These half humorous, wholly inspired features
would lose the greater measure of their attraction if the lower part of
the face were covered with hair.”
“I don’t agree with you, and I don’t consider the subject at all a
proper one,” said Mr. Johns sternly. “As for that picture, I am very
sorry I’ve seen it.”
It is probable Wynne would have answered hotly had not Vincent advanced
a suggestion:
“Why don’t you and the mater sit down for ten minutes,” he said. “This
Mr.—er—can take me round for a bit.”
“I’d like to rest my feet,” admitted Mrs. Johns; “the leather has begun
to draw.”
So Wynne and Vincent entered the next gallery together.
“My people are all right, you know,” said Vincent; “but they are a bit
off in Paris, you know.”
“Oh, really.”
“Yes. _You_ know! Isn’t there anything a bit more lively we can see? I
don’t think a lot of these Old Masters—damned if I do.”
Wynne had to bear in mind that he was the servant of these people, and
accordingly he replied, civilly enough:
“Perhaps you’d like the more modern school better.”
“I thought French painting was a bit livelier, but it seems about as dud
as the Liverpool Art Gallery. Aren’t there any more of those figure
pictures?”
“Nudes?”
“That what you call ’em?”
“That is what they are called.”
“Let’s have a look at some, anyway.”
“We’ll go through here, then, and I’ll show you ‘La Source.’ It is
considered remarkable flesh painting, although I don’t care for it very
particularly.”
As they turned to the modern side, Vincent dropped his voice, and said:
“Pretty hot, Paris, isn’t it?”
“I’ve never been here in the summer,” replied Wynne, an answer which
made his companion laugh very heartily.
“You are not giving much away, are you?” he mocked.
“There,” said Wynne; “this is ‘La Source.’”
He halted before Ingres’ masterpiece—the slim figure of a naked girl, a
tilted pitcher on her shoulder, from which flows a fall of greeny-white
water.
“Remarkable, perhaps, but not art.”
“No,” said Vincent, “I don’t like it either, you know. I see what you
mean—it isn’t spicy enough, is it?”
“Spicy?”
“Yes—you know. Look here, I was wanting a chance to speak to you alone.
I’ve got a bit of money.”
“You are more fortunate than I.”
“I don’t mind you having a bit of it.”
“Oh.”
“The mater and pater get to bed by 10 o’clock, and I could easily slip
out after that.”
“It ought not to be difficult.”
“We could meet, I thought, and you could show me round a bit. See what
I’m driving at?”
“No. What _are_ you driving at?”
“I want to see a bit of life, and you’re the chap to show it me.”
And suddenly Wynne became very angry, so angry that his face went pink
and white in turns.
“What the hell do you mean?” he exploded. “Do you take me for a
disorderly house tout?”
“Shut up—don’t shout.”
“You dirty, pimply— Good God!”
“If you call me names you won’t get your money.”
“Money!” cried Wynne. “D’you think I’d take money from any one who begat
a thing like you. Clear out, get away, and tell your father, when next
he thinks he’d like a son, to blow out his brains instead.”
Thrusting his hands in his empty pockets, and tossing his head from side
to side, Wynne stamped furiously from the gallery and down the steps to
the courtyard below.
It was two hours before he recovered an even temper, and then he
surprised many passers-by by stopping in the middle of the Rue de Rivoli
and shouting with laughter.
“One up to my immortal soul,” he cried. “And now for Les Arles!”
IX
For well-nigh eighteen months Wynne Rendall, seeker of eminence,
destroyer of symmetry, professor of æsthetic thought, worked with his
hands in little byways of the unfriendly city.
He had come to look on Paris as the unfriendly city, for very shabbily
she served him after his money gave out. They laughed at his frail
stature and careful, elegant speech when he sought work in the Covent
Garden of the French capital, and it was a desperately gaunt and hungry
boy who at last found employment in a small _pâtisserie_ somewhere in
the neighbourhood of Boulevard Magenta. Things had gone so ill with him
that he was rocking on his heels, staring greedily at the cakes in the
pastry-cook’s window like any starving urchin. He did not notice the
printed card, “Youth wanted,” which stood among the trays. A stout woman
behind the counter saw and beckoned him to enter.
“You look hungry,” she said.
“I am.”
Even short sentences were difficult.
“D’you want work?”
“I want to eat.”
“Eating is for people who work. Would you care for a place here,
delivering bread? I need some one.”
“I could not be trusted with a loaf,” he said, and fainted.
The stout lady was comparatively kind. She threw water over his face,
and when he came to, gave him coffee, a piece of sausage, and some
bread. She allowed him to finish, and then told him very plainly he
might express gratitude by accepting the post of errand boy at a small
wage.
To Wynne it seemed that any wage was acceptable which could be earned in
an atmosphere so rich in odours of cooked corn. He said “Yes” almost
before she had framed the offer. Later he repented, for the hours of
labour were incessant, the food scarce, and the room in which he slept
was dirty, damp, and ill-ventilated. Of his weekly earnings, when he had
bought himself cigarettes and paid back a certain proportion for
lodging, there remained little or nothing. Books, which had hitherto
been the breath of life to him, were of necessity denied. Very
occasionally he scraped together a few coppers and bought some dusty,
broken-backed volume which he scarcely ever found leisure to read. He
was too physically fatigued at night for reading, and during the day was
kept continually on the run.
He did not stay with the stout lady for long, but the changes he made
were rarely of great advantage. Once he found employment at a small
stationer’s, which bade fair to prove pleasanter, but from here he fled
precipitately on account of the amorous importunities of the stationer’s
younger daughter. She, poor child, had lost the affections of a certain
artisan, who lodged in the same house, and sought to regain them by
exciting jealousy. In the pursuance of this time-worn device she
proposed to sacrifice Wynne, and was prepared to go to no mean lengths
in order to give the affair a colourable pretence of reality. Wherefore
Wynne ran, not so much from the probable fury of the artisan as from a
vague fear which he did not entirely understand.
After this episode he became a waiter—or, to be exact, a wine boy. In
this branch of employment he was rather happier, although much of it
proved irksome and distasteful. He found that a waiter is allowed, and
even encouraged, to possess a personality. In the other callings in
which he had worked personality was condemned, but customers welcome an
individual note in a waiter. It helps them to identify him among his
similarly arrayed companions, and affords them opportunity for a lavish
expenditure of wit and sarcasm not always in the best taste.
For the first time Wynne was able to save a little money, which he put
by towards paying the price of a passage to England. He had decided to
leave Paris as soon as he had accumulated enough to pay the cost of
travel. In this matter, however, a certain inconsistency forced him to
remain. He would save the best part of the two pounds required, and, a
day or so before departure, would yield to an irresistible impulse and
spend several francs on the purchase of a book. He did this about a
dozen times altogether, and although the habit formed the nucleus of a
library, it postponed his departure indefinitely.
At last he had in his possession the required sum, and determined to
leave Paris at the close of the week, but certain pneumonic cocci
floating in the atmosphere and seeking a human abiding place, had other
plans for him, and by the Sunday morning, high-temperatured and
semi-conscious, he lay in his bed with a perilously slender hold upon
life.
M. le Patron had been aware of Wynne’s intention to depart, and had been
wishful of retaining his services. Without Wynne it would be impossible
for an honest man to display in his window the legend “English spoken,”
an announcement which stimulated trade among foreigners.
Accordingly he put himself to the trouble of engaging a doctor, whose
injunctions in regard to the treatment of the invalid he very faithfully
followed. It should be stated that he was no less faithful in recording
the out-of-pocket expenses incurred, which at the close of a six weeks’
illness were presented to Wynne in the manner of a debt.
“It will now be necessary that you shall remain until this sum is
restored to me,” he said. “I am generous not to have increased the
liability, for times were many when it seemed that I had incurred upon
myself the cost of a burial.”
Wynne reckoned that the least time in which he could reasonably hope to
clear the score would be from three to four months, and raised his voice
in protest.
“But my career, monsieur—what will become of my career?”
Money is one of the few things a Frenchman takes seriously; in nearly
all other matters he is possessed of an enchanting elasticity. Wynne’s
lamentations were heard without sympathy.
“The debt must be discharged,” said M. le Patron.
So once more Wynne donned his evening clothes with the break of day,
once more a serviette swung from the bend of his arm.
Strange to say menial service did not break his spirit or lessen his
conceit. There are certain compensations in the life of a waiter if he
be an observant fellow. Many and various are the types in which he comes
into contact, and there is no surer way of fathoming the character of
man than is afforded by watching him at his meat.
To a certain extent Wynne took a pride in his waiting, and made an
especial study of the craft. It amused him to “bank” his corners
perilously with a pile of plates on his hand; it amused him to whip off
the cover of an omelette and introduce it most exquisitely to its future
consumer; it amused him to theorise on a customer’s likely choice of
wine, and to suggest the vintage as he handed the card. But most of all
it amused him to reflect that he, Wynne Rendall, was a waiter. Not for
an instant did it occur to him that, up to this point, his achievements
had not merited his occupation of a more illustrious position. In the
back of his head was a comfortable assurance that he was a very
important and valuable person, and this being so, that it was
exceedingly droll for him to minister to the wants of the vulgar-minded.
He acquired the habit of jotting down his daily thoughts on odd scraps
of paper as he lay in bed at night, and some of these would have made
good reading had they been preserved. Also they would have served to
show very clearly the streak of egoism which outcropped his entire
personality. Occasionally he flew to verse of a style and metre very
much his own.
Here is an example:
“Garçon!”
In black and white I serve their bellies’ need,
Paid with a frown, a curse, a penny in the franc.
Will they thank
Me with a smile, when, playing on my reed,
I bid them hear, and from my cathedra
Their silly loves and lusts, dull thoughts and empty creed,
In black and white I show them as they are?
The verse in itself has few merits, but it afforded him a sense of
luxury to produce such lines. He felt as a king might feel who lay
hidden in a hovel, conscious of greatness in little places.
To his brother waiters Wynne was ever remote and a shade cynical. He
laughed at, but never with them, and affected a tolerant attitude which
they found far from endearing. Occasionally one of the sturdier would
attempt to bully him, but in this would seldom prosper. A Frenchman, as
a rule, bullies with his tongue rather than his hands, and Wynne’s
tongue was ever ready with a lightning counterstroke. These passages
were in some respects a repetition of the old schoolday affairs, and
since he never forgot a lesson he was well armed to defend himself.
And so the weeks dragged into months and the debt gradually diminished.
X
One bright spring morning, some two years after his arrival in Paris,
Wynne received a surprise. A broad-shouldered figure came under the
shadow of the awning and seated himself at one of the small round
tables.
“It’s Uncle Clem!” gasped Wynne to himself. He straightened his
waistcoat and went outside.
“M’sieur!” he said.
“Un bock,” came the reply.
Unrecognized, Wynne retired and returned a moment later with a glass
tankard which he set upon the table.
“Beau temps, m’sieur!”
“Ah, oui!”
“Just such another day as the one we spent in Richmond Park together.”
The big Englishman turned his head and raised his eyes sharply.
“Good Gad! It’s the Seeker!” he exclaimed. His hand shot out, enveloped
Wynne’s, and wrung it furiously. “Sit down! What the devil are you up
to?”
“Waiting,” Wynne smiled; “but I haven’t given up hope.”
“Splendid—and this is fine”—he tweaked the apron. “Serious?”
“Oh, very.”
“A man now, eh?”
“Something of the kind.”
“Fine! though why the hell you couldn’t let us know what had become of
you—”
“Touch of pride, Uncle Clem. I neither wanted to please my people nor
disappoint you.”
“Ah, now, now, now! None of that—none of it. They wouldn’t gloat and I
might have helped.”
Wynne seated himself thoughtfully.
“Yes, I think that’s true; but I wonder if you believe me when I say
that never once has it crossed my mind as a way out of the difficulty.
When I left home I left finally, not experimentally. If my father were
to see me as I am now he would say I had slipped down hill, but I
haven’t—I haven’t. Downhill I may have gone with a bit of rush, but I’m
gathering impetus all the time, getting up weigh for the climb ahead.
You see that, don’t you? This is all to the good, isn’t it?”
There was an honest, genuine sincerity in the way he spoke.
“Every time. All to the good. I should say it is. Hullo! who the devil
is this?”
“This” was M. le Patron, highly incensed at the sight of one of his
waiters sitting at a table.
“Ça fait rien,” began Uncle Clem. Then to Wynne, “Oh, you tell him it’s
all right; tell him I’m your uncle—say you’re coming out for the
afternoon. Here’s ten francs. Get your hat, and shove that damned dicky
in your pocket. Tell the old fool he’s a good fellah and to go to the
devil.”
A certain amount of foregoing advices were translated, and M. le Patron,
placated by the ten-franc note, granted Wynne leave of absence and
conversed affably with Uncle Clem while Wynne mounted the stairs and
changed his coat.
“Come on,” said Uncle Clem. “Let’s get somewhere where we can talk.”
He hailed a fiacre and they drove to the Bois de Boulogne. Here they
alighted, and sprawled upon the grass beneath a tree.
“Now let’s have the story from the word Go.”
So Wynne wound himself up and reeled off all his experiences in the
unfriendly city. Once or twice during the recital Uncle Clem frowned,
and once or twice looked at his nephew in some perplexity, but in the
main he nodded encouragement or gave little ejaculations of praise.
“Plucky enough,” he remarked at the close.
“I wonder sometimes. Is it plucky merely to fight for existence?”
“Did you merely fight for existence—was there no impulse behind it
all?”
“Yes, the impulse to do and to know has helped me over the stonier
parts.”
“The painting was not a success, eh?”
“It isn’t my medium.”
“Have you found out what is?”
The question was hard to answer. It would sound futile to reply,
“Writing,” when one had but a few occasional jottings on the back of
envelopes to substantiate the claim.
“I haven’t had much time,” said Wynne, ruefully.
“Of course not. After all, the medium doesn’t matter—it’s the motive
that counts. Have you determined on your motive?”
“I have learnt enough to show people what they are.”
“Then don’t. That’s a cynic’s task, not an artist’s.”
“Sometimes I think that one is but another name for the other.”
“Not it. An artist shows people what they might be.”
“Yet many have climbed to the peaks” (he was too self-conscious and
diffident, with added years, to say the Purple Patch) “by holding up a
mirror.”
Uncle Clem shook his head.
“A mirror should only reflect beautiful folk,” he replied. “There are
better things than to be a man with a camera.”
“I sometimes wonder if there are.”
“Don’t wonder. Beauty is not to be found by sorting out dustbins. Beauty
is in the woods, Wynne. Listen! You can hear the leaves in the tree
above us whispering of her, and the little waves in the pool yonder, are
leaping up lest they should miss her as she passes by. Can’t you feel
the wonder of her everywhere, now in the spring, when she leaps splendid
from her winter hiding? D’y’know, when April’s here I throw open my
window and look up into the blue and then I see her riding on a cloud.
You know the kind of cloud—the great white sort, which brings the
summer from the seas. Ha! Yes, and I shout my homage as I brush my hair,
and sometimes my poor man Parsons thinks I’m cracked. But what’s the
matter if she smiles—for she’s a smiling lady if ever there was one,
and her breath is like a breeze which is filtered through a copse of
violets.”
“Oh Lord, you are just the same old Uncle Clem as ever,” laughed Wynne.
“Damn your eyes,” came the colloquial rejoinder—“if you’re not
patronizing me!”
“Not I. Believe me, I wouldn’t have you different, but perhaps I’ve
changed a bit, and these dream pictures aren’t so real as they were.”
“Then make ’em real—they’re worth it.”
Wynne hesitated, then said:
“I’m beginning to see the world as it is, and it doesn’t look like that
any longer. I see it as a vast machine built up of cranks and gears, and
bolts and cogs—some odd, but mostly even. A thing of wheels and
reciprocal activity, for ever revolving and for ever returning to the
point from which it started. It’s hard to believe in fairies when one
thinks like that.”
“Then don’t think like that, or, if you do, think of the energy that
moves the machine—that’s where the mystery and the essence lie. The
wheels are nothing—it is the power which drives ’em that counts. Why,
heavens above! that should be the task for you, and such as you—to find
and refine the essence, to know and increase the power. For God’s sake
don’t scorn a thing because it goes round, but give it a push that it
may revolve faster. That’s the job! and a fine job too. It’s easy to
acquire cheap fame by jeering at a man because he goes to bed at night
and gets up in the morning—easy—but no good. Give him something to get
up early for and sleep the better for; that’s the way to earn your own
repose.”
“And you were the man who first showed me a satyr,” said Wynne.
“And I was the man who told you of the Purple Patch,” came the reply.
“I know, and I shall get there in the end.”
“But not by being of the clever ones. They sit on the lower slopes. They
bark—they don’t sing.”
“Up against intellect now?”
“I’m against obvious intellect all the time, because it’s perishable.
Look here, I may not make myself clear, but of this I am sure—a great
man is not great because he is clever, but he is clever because he is
great. The cleverness of the clever is merely an irritant. For a season
it may tickle the public palate, but it will never endure.”
“And how does a man become great?”
“By the strength of his ideals. Ideals never perish because they are
never wholly realized—besides, they spring from other causes.”
“And what is the fountain of ideals?”
“Feeling—human feeling. Don’t you know that—yet?” He turned a
penetrating glance on his nephew. “Never been in love?”
Wynne coloured slightly.
“No,” he replied, “I’ve never been in love.”
“Then be in love.”
“But that’s rather—”
“No it ain’t. You must be in love—it’s God’s great education to
mankind. A man knows nothing of himself, or of anything else, unless he
is a lover. Happy—wretched—sacred or profane—love is the mighty
teacher. What the devil d’you mean by never having been in love?”
Wynne laughed. “Couldn’t I ask the same question of you?” he asked.
“No, you couldn’t, for I always am. Ah, I may not be married—and that
is a great blessing for some poor dear unknown—but I’m always in love.
Sometimes it’s a girl with whom I have never exchanged a word, sometimes
a dead queen or a goddess of ancient times, and sometimes in silly,
sordid ways which lonely men will follow. But the spark of love that is,
or the spark of a love that was, I keep for ever burning. What sort of
life do you imagine mine would be without it?”
“Isn’t there a difference,” said Wynne. “You’re not a striver—you are
content—”
“Yes, I’m a loafer—a dilettante—who whistles his song of praise in the
country lanes—but—”
“The country lanes are the lover’s lanes; there is no time for love in
the great highways. How does the line go? ‘He travels fastest who
travels alone.’”
Uncle Clem rose and, stretching out a hand, pulled Wynne to his feet.
“He may travel fast,” he said, “but he don’t get so far. Come on! What
do you think—lunch chez Fouquet?”
They made a very excellent déjeuner at the pleasant little restaurant
under the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe, and when it was over, and Uncle
Clem had produced two delicate Havana cheroots, the conversation turned
to Wynne’s future.
“You’ve done enough of this waiting business,” he said. “Better come
back with me at the end of the week.”
“Sorry,” said Wynne, “but it won’t run to it yet.”
“Well, I’m your uncle—so that’s that, ain’t it?”
“It’s that as far as the relationship goes, but no farther.”
“D’you mean you won’t be helped?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t mean I’m not grateful.”
“But look here—”
“Don’t make me,” pleaded Wynne. “It would be so easy that way.”
“But it’s all nonsense. You’ve proved your mettle—no harm relaxing a
trifle.”
“I have proved my mettle to the extent of being a waiter,” said Wynne,
“and that isn’t as far as I want my mettle to carry me.”
“You might be here for years.”
“Perhaps. It will be my fault if I am. I have to prove my right to
climb. Help would disprove it.”
“’Pon my soul I admire your pluck.”
“It’s all you do admire, isn’t it?”
“Ah, get away with you! I talk a lot, that’s all; but I’ve a mighty
strong conviction that you’ll do.”
“I’ll do _and_ do,” said Wynne. “Maybe you won’t approve, but I hope you
will.”
“I hope so, and believe so—for the elements are yours—but I shan’t
tell you so if I don’t.”
With which somewhat cryptic remark they parted. Wynne had not gone very
far down the street, however, before he was overtaken by a somewhat
breathless Uncle Clem, who said:
“But, for God’s sake, fall in love if you can.”
PART FOUR
THE PEN AND THE BOARDS
I
The manner of Wynne’s return to England was fortuitous. It resulted from
the remark of a chance customer at the little restaurant.
“I wish to heaven you’d come right down to one of my rehearsals, young
man, and show the Gordam idiot I’ve engaged how a waiter waits.”
The speaker was a Cockney impresario who had come to Paris to collect a
few French revue artistes for a scene in a London production.
“I’ll come and play the part if you like,” replied Wynne.
The little man scrutinized him closely.
“Some idea!” he ejaculated (he had a habit of employing American
expressions). “But could you realize your own personality?—that’s the
point.”
“Good God! you don’t imagine this is my personality,” came the reply.
“This is as much a performance as any of Sarah Bernhardt’s.”
“Durn me, but I believe you.”
As a result Wynne took the evening off without permission, and made his
first acquaintance with the histrionic art. Being in no way affected
with nervousness he did not attempt to do otherwise than portray a
waiter as a waiter actually is. The producer acclaimed the performance
with delight. He sacked the other probationer, and gave Wynne a contract
for two months at a salary of two pounds five shillings a week.
“If I am to come with you I shall want five pounds down to discharge a
debt,” said Wynne.
The impresario grumbled somewhat, but since he was paying thirty
shillings a week less than he had anticipated, and was getting a vastly
superior article, he finally agreed.
So Wynne signed the contract, pocketed the notes, and went to break the
news to his employer.
M. le Patron was not stinting in the matter of abuse. He condemned Wynne
very heartily for lack of devotion to his welfare, upbraided himself for
misplaced generosity, offered him an increased wage to remain, and
finally—protest proving useless—shook hands and wished him every kind
of good fortune.
Four days later found the little company of players waiting for the
outgoing train at the Gare du Nord. To Wynne there was something
tremendously portentous in the moment. To find seclusion for his
thoughts he walked to the extreme end of the platform, where it sloped
down to the line, and here, to the unlistening ears of a great hanging
water-pipe, he bade farewell to the Unfriendly City.
“One of these days I shall return,” he spoke aloud; “one of these days
you will stretch out your hands to welcome me.”
And the little Cockney impresario who had followed him, fearful lest he
should try to escape with the five pounds, touched his shoulder, and
said:
“Studying your part, son?”
“Always,” came the answer.
II
They arrived in London about half-past six the same evening, and Wynne
could not help smiling as he noticed how all the good people were
hurrying homeward from their work as though their lives depended upon
expedition. As he came from the station he observed how they fought for
places on the omnibuses, and jostled down the steps to the tube
stations.
In Paris one is never conscious of that soundless siren which bids
mankind close the ledger and lock the office door. The Parisian does not
appear to be in any immediate hurry when work is over. He stays awhile
to converse with a friend, or takes his _petit verre_ under the shade of
a café awning.
Wynne reflected that the English must be a very virtuous race to exert
so much energy to arrive home. He recognized that the old goddess of
punctuality was still at work, and that the popular craving to be at a
certain place at a certain time, which had galled him so much as a boy,
was no false imagination.
“They are still in a hurry—still tugged along by their watch-springs,”
he thought.
As he watched the tide of hastening humanity he became suddenly aware
that he was glad that it should be so—glad for a personal reason.
Routine which formed so national a characteristic argued a nation whose
opinions, once formed, would endure.
To be accepted by such a people would mean to inherit an imperishable
greatness.
“Presently,” he thought, “these people will accept me as essential to
their lives. I shall be as necessary to them as the 8.40 from Sydenham.
They will no more miss me than they would miss their breakfasts.”
At this point the little impresario once more broke in upon his
reflections.
“Ten o’clock rehearsal tomorrow,” he said. Then with severity, slightly
diluted with humour, “No slipping off, mind. Feel I ought to keep an eye
on you till that debt’s wiped off.”
It is hard for any one to maintain glorious views as to the future while
the present holds a doubt as to his probity in the matter of a
five-pound note.
For the second time in his life Wynne occupied the bedroom in the little
Villers Street hotel. The good lady proprietress said she really did not
remember if he had stayed there before or not, but she “dared say” he
had. It was the sight of apparently the same uncooked sirloin surrounded
by apparently the same tomatoes which had lured Wynne back to the little
eating-house.
At dinner he conversed with the waiter upon technical subjects, and gave
his views upon perfection in the art of waiting. The worthy fellow to
whom these were addressed was not greatly interested however. He was
glad to converse with any one skilled in his native tongue, but a long
sojourn in the British Isles had given him taste for a meatier
conversational diet, and he preferred the remarks of two men at another
table who exchanged views relative to Aston Villa’s chances in the Cup
Tie.
In consequence Wynne was left to his own thoughts, which, on this
particular night, he found both pleasant and companionable. It was good
to feel that at last he would be earning a livelihood by means of an
Art, and a good Art too. Not so good, perhaps, but that it might not be
a great deal better. In the few rehearsals he had already attended he
had noted some glaring conventions and very grave stupidities, which he
vowed in the future he would eradicate. The position of producer—a
calling of which hitherto he had hardly been aware—suggested, of a
sudden, illimitable possibilities.
The producer was the man with the palette and brushes, and the artistes
were merely tubes of colour, to be applied how and where they would give
the best result. There was no end to what a producer might achieve, and
perhaps no better medium for conveying ideas to the public mind than
through the stage.
And just as Wynne had said, nearly two years before, “I must learn this
trade of painting,” he now determined to master the art of acting in all
its variations.
“But I must write, too,” he thought, “and read and work all the time.”
He passed a hand across his forehead and exhaled noisily. Great are the
responsibilities which a man will take upon his shoulders!
III
At the outset of his career as an actor Wynne found much to disappoint
him. He learnt that brains and application do not necessarily result in
stage success.
Among all the actors he met it was all too often the case that the most
intelligent were the least successful. Personality and notoriety
outweighed intellect. Even the most egregious ass, provided he was
representative of a certain type, prospered exceedingly, while the
really clever ones languished in the understudy room or formed
unspeaking props to hang clothes upon.
A man needs to be on the stage some while before he can appreciate that
casting and the box office are the chief considerations in a producer’s
mind. It is easier and more satisfactory to engage a fool to play a fool
than to ask a wise man to turn his wisdom to folly. Also it is a shrewd
business stroke to give the public some very rapturous feminine vision
to behold rather than give the part to some lady whose brain has a
greater claim to admiration than her features. The world forgives
stupidity when offset by loveliness—or even by a hint of subtle
scandal—but a very high standard of intellectual perfection is required
before the world will ignore a youth which has passed.
Taking these matters into consideration, Wynne was constrained to
believe that if theatre-goers were blind, and men gave up talking of
matters which concerned them not, there would be an immediate demand for
a class of actors, and particularly actresses, of a far higher mental
quality than heretofore.
Regarding acting as an Art he had more admiration for the surviving
members of the old school, who handed over their lines with an
assumption of great importance, than he entertained for the scions of
the new.
“You, at least, do something,” he observed to one old fellow, in a drama
company of which he had become a member. “You do something, and do it
deliberately.”
“That’s so, my boy—that’s so,” came the mightily satisfied endorsement.
“These moderns do nothing but realize their own ineffability.”
“It’s true—it’s too true!”
“And of course the worst of it is what you do is utterly
useless—utterly false—and utterly wrong—”
“Eh?” A stick of grease-paint fell to the floor.
“Whereas what they fail to do is, in the general sense, absolutely
right.”
Remarks of this kind do not make for popularity. This, however, did not
concern Wynne in the least. He had acquired the habit of talking rather
less than he was used to do. The thoughts and convictions which at one
time had bubbled to the surface he now mentally noted and preserved. He
felt, in the pride of his egoism, that it was not wise to give away his
ideas in conversation to the more or less trivial people with whom he
came into touch.
It was otherwise when one of the more successful members of the company
deigned to exchange a few remarks, for then he would bring all his
mental batteries to work with a view to prove to them how vastly
inferior they actually were.
One or two engagements were lost through the exercise of this habit, and
several straitened and penniless periods resulted. Twice in three years
Wynne left the stage, but from circumstance or inclination gravitated
back again. He was always able to earn two pounds to two pounds ten a
week playing small character parts, and if his attitude had been a shade
more congenial it is probable he would have done still better.
As a character actor he was singularly faultless and singularly
conscientious. He possessed a remarkable facility for submerging his own
personality and throwing off tiny portraits of different types, which
were recognizable to the minutest detail. In the performance of these he
took special pride, but if the producer interfered or made any
suggestions he was truculent to a degree, and fought for his rendering
with tiresome constancy.
“It isn’t as if your suggestion would be in the least improving,
and—good God!—if I am not to be trusted alone with eight lines, why on
earth engage me?”
This remark was fired at a super-eminent producer before an entire West
End company, and brought back from the black void of the auditorium:
“Would you please draw a fortnight’s salary from the business manager,
Mr. Rendall, and return your contract?”
He left the theatre straight away, and did not attempt to draw the
salary. In the sunshine outside he was overtaken with a masterful desire
to cry:
“They shan’t lead me—they shan’t! they shan’t!”
It was the wail of a little boy rather than of a man who fain would be a
king.
He returned to his room in Endell Street and flung himself face downward
on the bed, where he lay with heaving shoulders for a long, long while.
Presently he turned round and sat bolt upright.
“Everybody is against me, and I’m against everybody.”
On the table before him was a heap of books and a pile of papers, odd
jottings, queer little articles, scraps of poetry written in the
after-theatre hours. With a sudden fury he kicked at the table-leg and
sent them tumbling and fluttering to the floor.
“Why do I hate the world when I want to exalt it? Oh, God—God—God!
Damn this room! Oh, I’m lonely, I am so—so horribly lonely!”
He went and stood in the corner, rested his head on the faded wallpaper,
and sniffed:
“I’m lonely—lonely—lonely—lonely—lonely! I don’t think I’m very
strong—I think I’m ill—ill and lonely—lonely and ill—very ill, and
very lonely!”
Then suddenly he burst out laughing:
“Fool!—idiot!—I’m all right! Papers all over the place. Pick ’em up.
What’s all this rot about?” He read a few lines in his own handwriting:
“A good sort is the type of man with whom we trust our sisters—a bad
sort is the type of man with whom our sisters trust themselves!’
Epigram! Too long! ‘A sport is a man who says Cherio, and carries his
brains in a cigarette case.’ Necktie would be better. Oh! what’s the
good of writing this rubbish? What am I going to do now?”
He snatched a hat and went out. Presently he found himself in Pen and
Ink Square, with the ceaseless grumble of the news-producing engines
throbbing in the air. Before him was a doorway over which was written
“_The Oracle_.” He knew “_The Oracle_” for a democratic organ which
shrieked obscenely at the politics and morals of the country—under the
guise of seeking to purify, it contrived to include in its columns some
very prurient matter, without which its sales would have been even
smaller than they were.
Wynne walked straight in, mounted some stairs, and beholding a door
labelled “Editor—Private,” entered without knocking.
“Who the devil are you?” said a stout man sitting before a roll-top
desk.
“You wouldn’t know if I told you,” replied Wynne. “I’m nobody yet.”
“What d’you want?”
“Thought I’d write some articles for you.”
“Think again—outside!”
“Might not get in so easily another time.”
“Well, get out now, then.”
“That’s very foolish. How d’you know I may not be bringing you a
fortune?”
“I’m prepared to take the risk.”
“Then take a smaller one, and give me a subject to write you a sample
about.”
“Write about damn nuisances,” said the editor.
“Give me a sheet of paper.”
“Look here! Are you going to get out?”
“No. You told me to write about damn nuisances, and I’m going to do it.”
At this the editor leant back in his chair and said:
“Well, if you haven’t a profound cheek—”
Realizing the opening, Wynne seated himself before a vacant table and
took up a pen.
“Paper and silence,” he said, “are the ingredients required, and you
shall have your article in an hour’s time.”
Being a man of some humour the editor relaxed, and laughed exuberantly.
“Go to it then,” he said. “I’m off to tea, and I shall clear you out
when I come back.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind. I’ll be on the permanent staff by
nightfall.”
In writing upon damn nuisances Wynne took for his subject such widely
divergent national symbols as the Albert Memorial and _The Oracle_. Of
the two _The Oracle_ fared worst, and came in for the most complete
defamation in its heartily criticized career. The article was
iconoclastic, spirited and intensely funny. The entire office staff read
it, and the editor volunteered to take Wynne out and make him drunk then
and there. This offer Wynne declined, but he accepted the post of a
casual article writer at a penny a line, and returned home with a
greater feeling of satisfaction than he had known for some time.
The satisfaction, however, was short-lived, for in a very little while
he was heartily ashamed of subscribing his signature to scurrilous
paragraphs deprecating the private lives of parsons, and hinting darkly
at dirty doings in Downing Street.
He perceived that by such means greatness was not to be achieved, and
sought to ease his conscience by spending nearly all his earnings on
reputable books, and most of his spare time in the reading-room at the
British Museum. In the matter of food he was most provident, scarcely,
if ever, standing himself a good meal. He acquired the habit of munching
chocolate and of making tea at all hours of the day and night. By this
means, although he staved off actual hunger, he was never properly
satisfied, and his physical side became ill-nourished and gaunt. The
hours he kept were as irregular as could well be conceived, and he
frequently worked all night without a thought of going to bed.
IV
The days of his employment on the staff of _The Oracle_ were far from
happy, and the material he was asked to write soured his style and
embittered his outlook. Of this circumstance he was painfully aware, and
tried to combat it by writing of simple, gentle matters for his own
education. But the canker of cynicism overran and corrupted his better
thoughts like deadly nightshade twining in the brambles of a hedgerow.
Always his own severest critic, he would tear up the sheets of
close-written manuscript and scatter them over the room, stamp his feet
or throw up the window and hurl imprecation at the dying night.
Sometimes he sent articles or stories to the press, but from them he
received no encouragement. _The Oracle_ had an unsavoury reputation in
Fleet Street, and no self-respecting editor desired to employ the
journalists who wrote for this vicious little rag.
After his uncompromising attitude at their first meeting, the editor of
_The Oracle_ made a great deal of Wynne, and besought him to sign a
binding contract.
“I won’t sign anything,” Wynne replied.
“I’ll give you a salary of seven pounds a week if you do.”
“I wouldn’t for seventy.”
“You’ll think better of it later on.”
“Later on I shall wish to God I had never written for you at all. It
isn’t a thing to be proud of.”
At this the editor laughed and clapped him on the back.
“I’ve been wanting some one like you for years,” he cried.
“You’ll be wanting some one like me again before long,” came the answer.
Strange to say, the stout man did not resent Wynne’s attitude, neither
did he understand it. He regarded this queer, emaciated boy as an
agreeable oddity, and allowed him to say whatever he liked. Wynne was
most valuable to _The Oracle_, for his articles were infinitely more
educated and infinitely more stinging than any of the other writers’. As
a direct result they caused a corresponding increase of irritation and a
corresponding improvement in sales.
Whenever there was a hint of scandal, or any disreputable suggestion in
regard to some notable personage, Wynne was put on the track, with
_carte noire_ to give the affair the greatest possible publicity. In the
pursuance of this degrading journalese of detection and exposure he
disclosed unexpected moral considerations. When he did not consider the
person to be attacked merited rough handling he would resolutely decline
to associate himself in any way with the campaign. Entreaties and
protests were alike incapable of moving him. He would set his mouth, and
refuse, and fly into a towering fury with the editor when he suggested:
“Very well, then, Harbutt must do it.”
“Isn’t there enough beastliness in the world without seeking it where it
doesn’t exist?” cried Wynne. “I’ll burn this damn building to the ground
one of these days.”
He did not actually put this threat into practice, but did the next best
thing. A dispute had arisen in regard to some sordid disclosures which
the editor desired to make, and Wynne had proved beyond dispute that
there was no foundation for the charges. The editor, however, decided
that the story was too good to lose, and accordingly had it inserted,
with a thin veil drawn over the identity of the persons concerned.
“All right,” said Wynne, after he had seen a copy. “You’re going through
the hoops for this.”
An opportunity arose a short while after, and Wynne seized it without
scruple.
It was the habit of the paper to reserve a column each month in which to
set forth their ideals and intentions. Sometimes one and sometimes
another of the writers undertook this work. As a rule it was the last
paragraph to be inserted, and depended for its length upon the available
space.
The sub-editor, who was also proof-reader, was not a conscientious man,
and frequently delegated his duties to subordinates.
“It’s all plain sailing,” he said to Wynne. “Write about four hundred
words, and sling it over to the compositor. I’m meeting a friend or two
tonight.”
With that he went out, and Wynne, with a peculiar smile, wrote the
article, and very faithfully described the motives which inspired the
paper.
“_The Oracle_,” he wrote, “is the Mungo of the London Press—a sniffing
wretch for ever scrabbling garbage in the national refuse heaps.”
There was a good deal more in this style, and the compositor, while
setting up the type, was not a little disturbed in mind.
“Is this to be printed?” he asked Wynne.
“Certainly.”
“Danged if I can see what the idea is.”
“Imagine the sales, and go ahead.”
The entire issue had to be destroyed, but one or two copies escaped from
the printer’s hands, and a rival flew to hilarious headlines about it.
To the amazement of every one Wynne marched into the office the morning
after he had perpetrated the offence.
“What the hell is the idea?” shouted the editor. “What the hell do you
think you’re doing?”
“Getting even with my conscience,” replied Wynne.
He looked very frail and insignificant with the semi-circle of scarlet,
inflamed countenances and threatening fists besetting him.
“If you don’t want to be killed, take your blasted conscience out of
here.”
He did, but with no great speed, although many were the offers of
violence made as he passed out.
V
On the Embankment Wynne apologized to God very sincerely for having
debased his art. It was rather a pretty little prayer which he put up,
and had a gentler tenor than his wonted expression. After it was
finished he felt easier in mind, and comforted. But when he returned to
his rooms the oppression of a great loneliness took command of his soul.
Of late this feeling had dominated his thoughts not a little. He desired
some one to whom he might confess his thoughts and fears, some one of
the sympathetic intellect, who could smooth out the harsher creases of
life’s cloak, and give companionable warmth to the solitary hours.